Star Trek:Odyssey 29:Cold Case
by rylansato
Summary: Lieutenant Liz Dowler and Lieutenant Commander Hoshi Sato Zofchak are recruited to infiltrate a planet in Breen space to sabotage the Breen's Quantum Slipstream Drive project they had stolen from Starfleet.
1. Recruitment

Star Trek: Odyssey: Cold Case

Hoshi stood next to the biobed in sickbay, opposite of Doctor Plumley who was leaning forward a bit to examine Kyou and Ryou. She ran a tricorder over both of the twins going upward in front of Ryou and then downward in front of Kyou. They were mesmerized by the pulsating light of the tricorder. T'Pol stood off to the side and watched the doctor do her job. At Hoshi's request, T'Pol had come aboard the Alexandria as a civilian to help watch the twins while Dustin and Hoshi were on duty. She'd even watch Zoe as well when Alex and Christine were busy with their own duties.

During the days of the NX-01 Enterprise, T'Pol and Hoshi were not exactly close. T'Pol was only supposed to remain on Enterprise for a few months but she then took command when Captain Archer was relieved of duty when he suffered from interspatial parasites that prevented him to form long term memories. T'Pol then moved to Ceti Alpha Five with Archer. Doctor Phlox had been coming up with a cure and had found one and met up with T'Pol and Archer aboard Enterprise but the Xindi attacked, preventing Phlox from proceeding with the procedure. That's when the Alexandria had come into the past and saved Enterprise from the Xindi but the two ships were later attacked by the Borg of that century which led to the assimilation of most of the Enterprise crew. Out of all the senior officers, Hoshi, T'Pol and Phlox were the only ones to survive. Phlox now lived on Earth, getting caught up with 24th century medicine and T'Pol had lived on Vulcan for a few months before coming to the Alexandria at Hoshi's request.

"The twins are going to be fine." Doctor Plumley said. "They just a bit of a cough. Nothing to worry about." She put her tricorder down and picked up a hypospray. She pressed a few buttons on the back of it and then pressed it against the arms of Kyou and Ryou. "This should prevent their coughs from getting worse if it were to."

Hoshi nodded. "Thank you, Doctor."

The intercom kicked on and Captain Allensworth's voice came through. "Commander Sato, will you report to my ready room."

Hoshi tapped her comm. badge. "On my way, sir." She then looked to her Vulcan friend. "T'Pol could you take the twins back to my quarters?"

T'Pol nodded and Hoshi thanked her with a smile. Hoshi turned on her heel and headed for the doors. Just before she approached them, they slid apart and an engineer with severe burns was being rushed in by Lieutenant Commander Kazarick and Lieutenant Commander Zofchak. The injured engineer was moaning in pain. Hoshi couldn't tell the difference between the man's uniform and his skin due to the burns on him. The man held his hands out away from his body as if they were infected and if he touched the rest of his body, it would become infected as well. Hoshi could tell that the man was in so much pain just by looking how tensed up he was.

"He was working on a conduit. The plasma torch blew up in his hands." Dustin said he and Kazarick lifted the man onto the biobed.. Doctor Plumley ran over to the injured crewmember. T'Pol hoisted the twins up in her arms and rushed out the door, so they wouldn't be exposed to such a sight. Hoshi allowed them to go out first before she proceeded to the turbolift.

Hoshi stepped off the turbolift and onto the main bridge. She walked along the aft section of the bridge and down the left side of the bridge, behind Lieutenant McKenzie at tactical and various other crewmembers at the science stations. She walked down the three steps and was at the doors to the captain's ready room. She hit the chime button and heard the captain's voice a second later allowing her to enter. She stepped through the doorway and saw Captain Allensworth sitting behind his desk with Commander Merriell standing to the right of him and Lieutenant Liz Dowler sitting across from the captain, who had turned to face Hoshi when she walked in the door. It wasn't until Hoshi stepped inside the ready room was when she noticed another person in the room, but this person wasn't really there, it was a holographic display of Admiral Kate Kreimer. She was standing in the confines of a circular platform that was the captain's holographic projector.

"Thanks for coming so quickly, Hoshi. Please sit down." Allensworth said extending a hand out offering the seat on Dowler's right.

"I have personally asked for the two of you for a special assignment." Kreimer said.

"What kind of assignment?" Dowler asked.

"Covert ops." The admiral said.

Hoshi and Liz looked at each other and Liz inhaled sharply and frowned. "That's not exactly our area of expertise."

"I read your report of your mission to the Mirror Universe when you and Counselor Nycz infiltrated the ship of your mirror counterparts." Kreimer said.

"Hardly my finest hour." Dowler said.

"Based on what I've read in your files, you both have precisely the sort of skills and capabilities we need for this mission."

"Why do I find that hard to believe when Starfleet Intelligence has its own specially trained field operatives?" Liz asked.

"To be honest, we're shorthanded. But even if we weren't, I'd still be here talking to you."

"Why?" Hoshi asked.

"I'm sure you've heard about the explosion at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards."

Both of them nodded. "It wasn't just an industrial accident, was it?" Hoshi asked.

"What I'm about to tell you can't be discussed with anyone not involved in the mission. Understood?" All four of them nodded. "The explosion was part of an exit strategy by a spy who stole designs for the slipstream drive. There's evidence that a phase cloaked Romulan ship was involved in the extraction of the spy, which suggests this was an act of espionage by this new alliance that we've gotten reports about between the Breen, the Romulans, the Gorn, the Tholians and the Tzenkethi."

"I'm still not seeing what this has to do with us." Liz said.

"We've been monitoring shipping activity throughout the territories of this new alliance. We were looking for patterns that suggested they were gathering material and components for the construction of a slipstream drive. Three weeks ago, we correlated our latest updates and found what we think is a secret shipyard, hidden on a world inside Breen space. We're looking for a planet called Memchr in the Rakis system. It's not much more than a mostly frozen chunk of rock, but its been getting quite a bit of cargo traffic from the Breen and Romulans lately. We haven't found much beyond a few small installations on the surface, but we think that's because the real action is on the ground."

"As in a concealed shipbuilding facility." Liz said.

Kreimer nodded. "We have eyes on every shipyard in the alliance, so we know they aren't building a slipstream drive prototype at any of them. But this world is where they've been shipping critical parts for a chronoton integrator, which allows the ship to pass through the slipstream without slamming into anything at a hundred times the speed of light."

"If they are making a prototype there, why not just send in a fleet and frag the planet?" Merriell asked.

"Tempting, but ultimately self defeating. We're in no condition to start a shooting war with the alliance, Commander. Besides, just because they're building it there doesn't mean that's the only place they have the plans. But it does mean that's where they're doing their research."

"And updating the schematics with new data as they figure out how to make the drive work with their ship designs." Dowler said catching on.

"Exactly, Lieutenant. That's this target's real value. Consequently, we've been ordered to initiate a full sanction operation. Which means that whomever we send in has a license to kill, authorized by President Bacco herself. "We don't just want to take out the shipyard, we want to sabotage the stolen data and its backups as well."

"And how much time do you think this will buy us?" Allensworth asked sounding skeptical. "They'll figure out slipstream eventually, with or without our plans."

"True, but it'll take them a hell of a lot longer without the plans." Kreimer said. "Our best estimate is that sabotaging this program will buy us another decade of being the only ones with slipstream, by which point we hope to have fully recovered from the Mirror War and expanded our reach to new regions of the galaxy. But if we don't then we may become a second rate power in less than a year and what happens after that, I don't think any of us want to find out."

"That still doesn't answer our question on why us?" Hoshi said.

"Our knowledge of the Breen is limited." Kreimer said. "We can barely translate that machine speak of theirs, and their culture's a total blind spot. Remote observation has yielded almost no usable intel about their society or their biology. Whoever we send to Memchr needs to be more adaptable than anyone we currently have available. We've picked you, Lieutenant Dowler because of your astral anthropology field of study and you're one of the best in the fleet. We've picked you, Commander Sato or Commander Zofchak, whichever you prefer, because of your linguistic skills. You are able to become fluent in a language after just hearing it once. No one else in the fleet can do that." Kreimer could sense their reluctance. "We need both of you. If you turn us down, we will go forward without you, but frankly, I don't like the odds."

Liz and Hoshi looked at each other and then to Captain Allensworth. They both nodded to their captain. Allensworth stood up and faced Admiral Kreimer. "Looks like you've got them, Admiral."


	2. The Breen

_Captain's Log: Stardate: 59048.2: We've begun our investigations on preparing Lt. Commander Hoshi Sato and Lieutenant Liz Dowler on their mission into Breen territory. However, we do not know much on the Breen and have asked Commander Ezri Dax and Doctor Julian Bashir to assist us since they have had experience with the Breen._

"Their biology makes no sense." Dustin said.

"What do you mean?" Liz asked.

"It's inconsistent." The chief engineer replied.

"Oh that clears up a lot of things." Liz said with a sarcastic undertone.

"I mean that there are four totally different physiological profiles for the Breen." Dustin said. "One report says they're humanoid with canine snouts, but that's speculative."

"Because of the armor." Hoshi said.

Dustin continued. "Another says their bodies are sacks of ammonia with skeletons and they just go poof at temperature above thirty-two degrees."

Alex came over holding another padd. "A Klingon file says they're silicon based, but Starfleet thinks they're carbon based. One file says the Breen have four lobed brains and no blood, and another says they have no organs at all."

"Did you see anything that could help us when you were taken prisoner by the Breen two years ago, Dustin?" Allensworth asked.

The chief engineer shook his head. Images of the ship's corridors flying past him as he sprinted down the halls, trying to get away from the Jem'Hadar that the Breen had created. Then images of him beating the Jem'Hadar into submission flashed through his mind which then forced his thoughts to think of his deceased sister Avery. "No, Captain. They all wore the same armor and spoke in their machine like speech. I saw no unarmored crewmembers or anything like that."

"What about you, Commander Dax?"

The joined Trill shook her head as well. "Nothing really stood out that I could see. Worf and I were constantly planning our escape and we were being shocked most of the time the Breen came into the room."

"One thing is for certain though. If this was really their physiology, they'd have no use for M class worlds." Alex said. "They'd be all over P class planets like Andor or any other glaciated planets. But they colonize M class planets almost exclusively."

Liz looked down at her padd and the notes she had jotted down on it about Breen physiology. "So what is our official hypothesis about their physiology?"

"It could be that most of them are humanoid." Hoshi said. Everyone looked at Hoshi, who wasn't really prepared for everyone's immediate attention at her comment. "What? Did I say something incredibly stupid?"

"No, not at all." Allensworth said. "But are you suggesting that there's more than one kind of Breen?"

Hoshi nodded. "Yeah. When I was fighting against the Xindi in the 22nd century, we found out that there were five different kinds of Xindi. There were six but one of them went extinct. There were Reptilian, Insectoid, Aquatic, Arboreal, and Primate. The Avian part of the Xindi were the ones to die off."

"Then that puts us back at square one with their physiology." Allensworth said. "Let's go ahead and study their language." He shifted his gaze toward the ceiling. "Computer, play Breen speech extract one." A harsh metallic screech filled the room. It made Liz think of dueling drills and grinding gears.

"Computer, pause playback!" Hoshi said. Everyone looked at her as to why she suddenly stopped the recording. "That's not organic syntax. It's artificial. It's the kind of signal a universal translator creates when it parses one language into another."

"So the Breen language is computer generated?" Liz asked. "What are they androids?"

"No, I'm saying there is no Breen language." Those vocoders aren't for translating or amplifying, they're for scrambling. They hide the speaker's true language."

"Why?" Dustin asked.

"I'm not sure." Hoshi said.

"It could be that Breen society is based on misinformation and obfuscation, inside and out. They hide their true natures from each other as well as from outsiders."

"Wait." Liz said. "You just did the same thing again, Commander. You referred to the Breen in a plural manner, implying they have more than one nature."

"I just have this idea in my head that there is no such thing as Breen physiology because Breen is not a species. Breen is a arbitrary social construct."

Captain Allensworth walked over to the wall viewer and studied its data. "How many species do we think the Breen are comprised of?"

"From a couple to maybe a dozen." Hoshi said. "I don't know, it's just a notion in my head that I can't get away from."

"Don't worry, it's a good thought. It wouldn't be the first time that one species ended up being several different species." Allensworth said.

"They all appear to be essentially humanoid in form." Bashir said. "But even while wearing all that armor and speaking through those vocoders, they exhibit subtle variations in their body language."

"What kind of variations?" Allensworth asked.

"Variations such as: preferred distance while speaking to a subordinate, reactions to the presence of superiors, the way they shift in weight while at rest."

"During the Dominion war, Colonel Kira disguised herself as a Breen and she noticed that the coolant pack was just for show. So that means that not all Breen need to be constantly cooled." Dax said.

Liz looked at Hoshi and Allensworth. "This is our way in. If the Breen use those suits and helmets to mask their identities even from one another, we can modify two sets of armor and practically walk right in."

"We could modify the helmets' translators to turn your voices into Breen noise and vice versa." Dustin said. "Even in a crowd of Breen, no one would know."

"The suits also are made to mask the wearer's vital signs." Bashir said.

"I think we're forgetting one major part of the plan." Alex said. Everyone stopped talking and looked at the Alexandria's first officer. "How are we going to get up to the front door?"

Thot Prazz stood on a scaffold beneath the bow of his half assembled fast attack cruiser prototype and gazed into a firefall of sparks. Glowing motes rained down from a team of hull welders working high above him. The torrent cascaded over his shoulders and ricocheted off his armored chest and the snout of his helmet.

_My masterpiece will need a name. Something fitting. _Prazz thought to himself.

An electronically processed voice squawked inside his helmet. "Command to Thot Prazz. Do you read me, sir?"

"Yes, Trax. What is it?"

"Our visiting dignitaries insist on meeting with you. I told them you were busy, but they were quite adamant."

Masking his annoyance with boredom, Prazz asked, "Where are they?"

"In your office, sir. Should I have them escorted to their quarters?"

Prazz began to the slow walk back to the airlock. "Not necessary, Trax. Tell them I will be there momentarily. Prazz out." As he crossed the catwalk, Prazz was thankful for the magnetic pads in the soles of his boots. They kept his footing solid as he traversed the microgravity environment that surrounded his work in progress.

Massive flood lamps focused blinding light on the dart like starship, the reflection from which illuminated the rough hewn stone interior of the classified shipyard. The rocky walls were reddish brown and studded with shimmering hunks of crystal and glittering patches of metallic ore. There had been times during Prazz's years of service to the Confederacy when he had envied starship designers who worked in open space beneath a curtain of starlight; this was not one of those times. As claustrophobic as this wholly enclosed drydock had seemed to him when he'd first arrived, he had to admit that he also found it beautiful in a peculiar way that so far he had been unable to describe to anyone else.

At the end of the catwalk, he keyed his security code into the panel beside the airlock door, which slid open to the left. As soon as he stepped inside, he felt the pull of normal gravity, and the magnets in his boots automatically disengaged. The out door closed behind him, the chamber pressurized in seconds, and the inner door opened, permitting him ingress to the command center for the shipyard. IT was a short walk to the lift, and a few minutes later he was standing in the doorway to his office, facing the two newest impediments to his success.

"Thank you for seeing us." General Tomeck, a Romulan who had come on the behalf of the Tal Shiar, the intelligence apparatus of the Romulan Star Empire, to monitor Prazz's progress. Tomeck nodded in the direction of his companion, a high ranking Gorn officer known as Sonath. "We trust you and your team are making swift progress on the prototype."

"Yes." Thot Prazz said. "Thank you for your confidence." He hoped that adopting a dismissive attitude toward his unwelcome visitors might cut the meeting short, but his experience with Romulans kept him from being optimistic.

Tomeck narrowed his eyes. Despite being middle aged, he sported a full head of jet black hair and an intense demeanor. "My people took a great risk to extract your field operative from the Federation's shipyard. We also honored your requests for his privacy while we ferried him here. I should think our actions would serve as evidence of our good faith in this joint endeavor."

"Your people have honored the terms of our agreement to the letter." Prazz said. "So have mine. We provided an operative who could and did access the plans and we are constructing the prototype as agreed."

Sonath's voice was as rough as his fangs were sharp. "But you have not been sharing your prototype's test data."

"Because that was not part of our agreement." Prazz said. "You pledged to provide us with the requisite rare ores and finished components. We promised you six operational cruisers in return."

"Our leader insists that you share your research into the slipstream drive, so that we may begin training crews to operate it." Sonath said.

"Unfortunate then, that your leader failed to specify such terms when the parameters of our partnership were set."

The Romulan stepped between Prazz and the Gorn. "Friends, there is no need for us to argue, or to be bound by unnecessarily narrow language of politicians. I'm certain that if we discuss this in a rational manner, we can arrive at a mutually beneficial arrangement that allows for greater cooperation."

"Our arrangement is already one of mutual benefit." Prazz said. "If you wish to see it changed, that is a job for diplomats. I am an engineer and a soldier. Amending treaties is not part of my job description."

"Forgive me." Tomeck said. "But you are being most unreasonable. My people and Sonath's are both skilled ship builders. If you would share the design schematics and your latest notes, our engineers could help you. It might shave days or even weeks off the schedule." Adding a touch of soft menace, he said, "Time is a factor for this project, in case you've forgotten."

Prazz resented Tomeck's insinuation that he and his crew were unequal to the task of finishing the prototype. "I have not forgotten." He said. "And I am on schedule, assuming we end this meeting now so I can return to work."

A low growl rolled behind Sonath's razor sharp grin, and Tomeck's taut smile was no less threatening. "As you wish." The Romulan said. He followed the Gorn to the door. After Sonath stepped outside, Tomeck looked back at Prazz. "For your sake, Prazz, I hope you remain on schedule. Because if you do not, I assure you that I will amend the terms of our partnership."

Tomeck walked away, and Prazz pressed a button to close and lock the door, just in case the Romulan or his reptilian pet decided to come back. He blamed the politics for this state of affairs. In the past, Prazz knew he would have been free to sped a few years developing slipstream technology without drawing the attention of the Confederacy's galactic neighbors. But now the Breen were yoked to the Romulans' paranoia, the Gorns' ambition and the Tholians's xenophobia.

_All I ever wanted to do was to build great starships. If I had known it would mean dealing with politicians, I would have become a writer._


	3. Mission Details

"Outfitting you two with modified Breen armor was the easy part." Lieutenant McKenzie said. "The hard part was concocting cover identities for you."

Heads bobbed in silent acknowledgement around the conference room's table. Allensworth sat at the head, flanked by Merriell and Zofchak. Sato-Zofchak and Dowler sat together with their backs to the windows.

Alex Merriell leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. "Working with Starfleet Special Ops, we've developed an insertion strategy around the Lanic, a Breen vessel captured a few years ago in the Rashnar system. We're going to use it as a stand in for another Breen vessel, the Caposkir, which was destroyed in the Hromi cluster by the Klingons two months ago.

"Because both the Lanic and Caposkir were privateers, we suspect their crew manifest might not have been closely monitored as those aboard official Breen military vessels." Zofchak said. "We've encoded your armor disguises with chips that will identify you as members of the Caposkir's crew."

Dowler cocked an eyebrow. "What if the Breen government figures out that our cover identities are forgeries?"

"In that case, you'll both probably be killed as spies." Merriell said. Dustin and Hoshi shared a look and clasped each other's hands tightly under the conference table. Merriell continued, But not until a Breen military vessel picks you up, which is our second challenge."

"This is where the Lanic comes in." Zofchak said. He pressed a button on a panel next to his left hand that activated a view screen on the bulkhead behind the captain. "When we reach the edge of Breen space, you'll be placed aboard the Lanic, which is waiting for us inside a sensor blind, along with an unmanned Orion raider." Images of the two alien ships appeared on the screen. Zofchak continued as a computer animated dogfight between the ships played out in slow motion. "Both have been fitted with extensive remote control systems and programmed to play out a series of combat maneuvers. Though their weapons are at full power, none of the shots they fire will actually hit. Instead, we'll be triggering a number of controlled demolitions to simulate battle damage."

"Why are their weapons at full power?" Hoshi asked.

"To make sure the Breen cruiser patrolling the sector detects the battle. We want it to register as authentically as possible on their sensors." McKenzie said.

"You two," Zofchak said, resuming his presentation, "will ride out the mock battle inside one of the Lanic's escape pods. Yours will be the first pods ejected. Once you've reached minimum safe distance, we'll self destruct both ships, making it look as if they've destroyed each other. The remaining pods from the Breen ship will be decoys caught in the blast radius, explaining why there are no other survivors from the ship."

"What if some of those pods survive the blast? Or if the Breen patrol ship recovers the Lanic's sensor logs?" Liz asked.

"The other pods are rigged to self destruct and we've programmed the Lanic's logs with the mock battle. If the patrol ship recovers anything from the wreckage, it should corroborate their own sensor readings." Merriell said.

"We've outfitted your pod with a transponder recovered from the Caposkir, so you'll appear to be survivors of that ship. It ought to make your cover story a bit more plausible if you don't come from a ship that's been missing for three years." McKenzie said.

"So, Lieutenant Dowler and I will wait inside the pod for a Breen patrol to pick us up. How long should we expect to be adrift before the patrol ship rescues the pod?" Hoshi asked.

"About six to eight hours." Merriell said.

"And once we're aboard, how do we know they'll take us to Memchr?"

Anxious looks passed between McKenzie and Merriell. "That part's a gamble." McKenzie said. "Memchr is the closest Breen colony to the coordinates we've picked for your mock battle, and its also the home port of the patrol ship we're trying to lure. Unless the patrol ship has orders to proceed somewhere else, its most likely destination after picking you up should be Memchr."

Zofchak shot a concerned look at Hoshi, who maintained a perfect poker face. "For now," Hoshi said. "Let's operate on the assumption that the patrol ship brings us to Memchr, what's our exit strategy."

"You'll be given recall beacons." Merriell said.

"High power, super low frequency subspace burst transmitters. Like the ones used on cloaked Klingon starships. We'll be able to read it from distances of up to thirty light years."

"The Alexandria will be standing by on the Breen Federation border." Allensworth said. "As soon as we get your recall signal, we'll warp in, beam you out, and make a run for it."

"We'd rather not spark a shooting war." Merriell added. "So try to keep a low profile and get someplace remote before you trigger the beacon."

"We'll do our best." Hoshi said. "Captain, how soon after we call for extraction can we expect your arrival?"

Allensworth shrugged. "If everything goes according to plan? Five minutes."

"And if everything doesn't go according to plan?" Dowler asked.

"Then possibly a bit longer."

"What if we lose the beacons?" Dowler asked. "Can we see the specs on the signal in case we need to find an alternative transmission method."

"It'll all be in your briefing packet." Zofchak said.

"Final details," McKenzie said. She picked up a padd from the table and tapped in commands, changing the display on the view screen to show a cutaway schematic of Breen armor. "We've taken the Breen life-support gear out of your disguises and replaced them with human tailored systems. The suits will protect you from vacuum, submersion, heat and cold and they should offer you some limited defense against projectile and directed energy weapons."

"So it's a closed system?" Hoshi asked.

"Only when it needs to be." Zofchak said. "Most of the time you'll breathe normally while it replenishes its air supply. But if the suit's sensors detect toxins within twenty meters, or if you get submersed or lose air pressure, it'll switch over automatically unless you override it."

The image on the screen enlarged the helmet design. "Inside your helmets are holographic heads up displays," McKenzie said. "These will provide you with our best available real time translations of written Breen languages, superimposed over your field of vision. Dowler, you'll probably need this more than Hoshi will as she will probably have adapted to their language by then. We've also scrounged up a fair amount of Breen currency in case you need it." Zooming back out to a full shot of the armor, McKenzie added, "Airtight pockets will contain tools, compact med kits, and compressed rations. Myoelectric fibers will amplify your strength. Make sure you review our briefing packets before you deploy."

"Any further questions." Allensworth asked. No one spoke and he nodded. "We rendezvous with the Lanic in seventeen hours. Hoshi, Liz, good luck. Dismissed."


	4. The Lives We Lead

"You know this is really unethical." Jermaine said as he rolled onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, with the only light coming from the two candles on both sides of the bed and the stars outside.

"What is?" Liz asked as she cuddled up next to Allensworth, who in turn put his arm around her to hold her close. She watched the candle flame flicker and dance as if it was trying to get her attention.

"What we're doing. I think there are rules to this sort of thing." Allensworth said.

"Only unwritten rules. There is nothing in the Starfleet rule book stating that officers can't be together, especially the captain and a lieutenant. This is our seventh date and you've not voiced any concern before now."

"I know. I think its…."

"The fact that I'm being sent on a possible suicide mission." Liz said before the captain could say it. She took her eyes off the candle and leaned on her elbow to look into the captain's dark obsidian eyes. "We may have deep feelings for one another, but in the grand scheme of things, these feelings do not matter as we are Starfleet officers and we have to make sure of the safety of the quadrant by sabotaging the Breen slipstream project."

"I'm fully aware of our duty and where our feelings for each other fall in line with the rest of the universe. I just don't want to regret feeling this way if something were to happen, especially since I'm the one who allowed Admiral Kreimer to send you on this mission."

"That's the life we signed up for when we signed the dotted line entering Starfleet. We're supposed to put our personal feelings aside when we're on duty. That's how life is like wearing a Starfleet uniform."

Allensworth nodded. "You're preaching to the choir. I know that's the life we're supposed to lead and we can't allow our personal feelings cloud our judgment, especially for someone in my position. When I took command I promised myself that I would not become involved with someone under my command. And I stayed true to that."

"Until you met me." Liz said.

"Yes. The first time I met you, there was something about you. After that, I couldn't control my feelings any longer and the rest is history. Although a small part of me didn't want to have these feelings in the event such as the one were getting ready to face."

"But you're only human and the fact that you acknowledge these feelings that contradict your duties and in doing so it allows you to be a good captain. You care for the people under your command and do not follow the higher ups blindly. That's one of the many things I like about you." She leaned up and kissed him. "No more talk. We should get some sleep. We have a long couple of days ahead of us. And I do plan to come back so we can have our eighth date."

"I thought we've had more than that." Jermaine said.

"We might've, but who's counting." Liz said as she closed her eyes, resting her head on Jermaine's shoulder.

Hoshi awoke in her quarters only four hours of falling asleep. It had been six hours since the mission briefing and she needed some sleep before the mission because who knows when she'd be able to sleep next. She rolled over to face her sleeping husband but to her surprise, he wasn't there. The bed sheet was cold which meant that Dustin had not been in bed for some time. She hoped that he wasn't down in Engineering working on something, a habit he had a tendency of doing when he couldn't sleep. She slipped out of bed and threw on a rob to cover her half naked body and headed for the room that held her twin daughters.

She turned the corner and to her slight surprise she saw Dustin leaning over the cradle that held their daughters. He had his arms folded on the railing with his chin resting on his arms. His gaze shifted the twins to Hoshi as she approached. He still wore his bed clothes, which told Hoshi that he had been here the entire time and had not gone down the Engineering.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Just thinking." He said peering down at the twins.

"About what?" She asked putting her hand at the base of his neck and lightly rubbed her hand across his shoulders and back. "You're worried about this mission I'm going on, aren't you?"

Dustin leaned up and nodded. "Yeah I'm a bit worried. I want the girls to grow up knowing both of their parents, not just one of them. I guess the thought never occurred to me that you may not come back."

"That's the life we live, Dustin." Hoshi said. "I was scarred out of my mind when you were on the Ba'ku planet fighting the Terran Empire. I was afraid you would never come back and I'd raise the girls by myself."

"I guess it's my turn to worry." Dustin said with a slight grin. He then pulled his wife in for a tight hug, not ever wanting to let go.

"Besides, I've already talked to T'Pol, she said she'd help raise the girls if anything were to happen to me. The girls like her and don't fuss too much with her."

"It seems like a old twentieth century television plot of something happening to one of the parent and the other parent has a friend of the opposite sex help raise the children and the now single parent falls for the friend." Dustin said. He leaned away from Hoshi and looked her in the eye. "I really don't want to fall for T'Pol. Besides, I never really had a thing for Vulcans." He leaned forward and rested his forehead on hers. "You're the one and only one for me. If anything were to happen to you, I could never find anyone else. I don't think I could ever love someone else as much as I love you."

He leaned in and kissed her passionately. After he broke the kiss, he said, "I love you, Hoshi." Her watery eyes gazed up and stared deeply into his green eyes. She couldn't tell if his eyes were watery too or not as the tears welled up in her eyes.

"I love you too."


	5. Executing the Plan

The first twelve blasts that rocked the escape pod left Hoshi feeling ready to vomit. It was worse than the sick feeling she got when she used a transporter for the very first time on the NX-01 Enterprise. The first time she had used the transporter, had an hallucinating effect on her during the rematerialization process. While in normal time, it had only lasted a few seconds but from her point of view, she had experienced a full day's worth of events that included an alien plot to destroy the ship.

The second dozen slammed her and Dowler into each other and pinned them to the bulkheads. One torpedo after another rumbled through the hull of the Lanic and shook the sealed claustrophobic pod. "So much for their promise of not feeling a thing." Hoshi said between bouts of violent shaking and thunderous noise. "I'm starting to hate this plan."

Liz seemed to be enjoying the rough ride. "It'll hurt less if you don't tense up. Just relax and pretend you're a spring." She lifted her arms and spread her legs in a passable impression of Leonardo da Vinci's famous "Virtruvian Man." Floating in the pod's zero gravity environment she used her fingertips and toes to keep herself bouncing lightly around the middle of the pod. Hoshi emulated her pose and focused on staying limber.

A hull rattling explosion quaked the ship, and Hoshi followed Liz's lead, bending at the knees to absorb the pod's momentum., springing back and then bending at the elbows once he made contact with her hands. As the effects of the latest barrage faded, the two of them hovered once more in the pod's center, tenuously maintaining their equilibrium. She exhaled with relief.

Cacophonous noise roared around them. Liz peeked inside her helmet and checked its built in HUD. "Two more minutes of this before we eject."

"That's not too long." Hoshi said, even though she knew full well that under the right circumstances, two minutes could feel like a lifetime.

A sudden jolt launched them upward and Hoshi hard a hollow clang as Liz's head banged up against the pod's sealed airlock hatch. She winced then squeezed her eyes shut as she pressed hard to the top of her head.

Hoshi reached out with one handed and steadied her. "Are you all right?"

She opened one eye and glared at her. "I'm starting to hate this plan."

Meanwhile, Allensworth saw with one leg over the other in the Alexandria's command chair, presiding over the tense but generally quiet labors of his bridge crew. Commander Merriell was directing the mock battle that the crew was waging by remote control and monitoring on the main view screen. "Stand by for final torpedoes." He said.

At the helm, Lieutenant Dowey guided the movement of the Breen ship with his left hand and controlled the Orion ship with his right. "Both ships are in position." He said. "Initiating final attack patterns in ten seconds." Watching pilot both sides of a dogfight, Allensworth mused that this was the first time he had realized the youthful Denevan flight controller was ambidextrous.

Zofchak stood at the engineering console, where he monitored and triggered the demolitions packages that were slowly tearing the remote guided vessels to pieces. His actions were being coordinated with those of McKenzie, who was in charge of firing the two ships' weapons in a series of painstakingly choreographed near misses that would, they all hoped, deceive the sensors of a distant Breen patrol ship, which had already been detected en route at maximum warp.

"Charges twenty-one through thirty armed and ready." Zofchak said.

"Weapons locked." McKenzie replied.

Lieutenant Commander Ra'chel Johnson, the Alexandria's senior operations officer, was generating a series of sensor shadows intended to create the illusion of full crews inside the two battling ships. It wasn't clear whether Breen sensors were accurate enough at long range to pick up such details, but Allensworth had insisted his crew not make a mistake by underestimating the intelligence or capabilities of the Breen military. Helping the lithe brunette calibrate her sensor illusions was the red headed science officer Lieutenant Commander Tessa Violet. "Reduce crew complement ton the Breen ship by nine percent." She said. "We need to simulate casualties in real time."

"Doing that as we speak." Johnson said. "Just waiting for the plasma fire Commander Zofchak triggered to spread past farme ten."

She silenced a chirping alert on her console. "Fire confirmed in forward sections, reducing crew signatures."

"Final attack runs are under way at full impulse." Dowey said.

"Look sharp." Merriell said. "Zofchak, send the Lanic's SOS now, and stand by to eject our agents' pod."

"Weapons firing in five seconds." McKenzie said.

"Eject pod." Merriell said. "Launch the decoys."

"Pod's away." Zofchak replied. "Decoys released."

"Firing." McKenzie said.

"Detonate all charges." Merriell said.

A brilliant flash of light turned the main view screen white for a moment, and then the radiance faded into the dark curtain of stars.

Johnson worked at her console as she reported. "Both ships destroyed, sensor ghosts terminated. The pod is undamaged and clear of the blast radius."

"Good work, everyone." Allensworth said. "Secure from yellow alert and begin radio silence. Lieutenant Dowey, set course for the edge of the cluster. Johnson, keep our sensors on the escape pod. I want to know the moment the Breen pick it up." Swiveling his chair toward his communications officer, he continued. "M'Ress, monitor all transmissions from the Breen patrol ship. If they don't buy our ruse, we'll need to extract our people on the fly."

"Yes, sir." The Caitian said. "Standing by for Plan B."

Merriell made a quick circuit of the bridge and passed out compliments to each member of the crew as he went. When he finished, he sat down in his seat at Allensworth's side and asked in a confidential tone of voice. "And now…?"

"Now we wait." Allensworth said. "And pray this doesn't go hideously wrong."

After being ejected, Hoshi and Liz spent a few moments afterwards treating their various bruises and abrasions with the portable med kits included with their modified Breen armor. Then they passed the remainder of the first few hours savoring the blissful silence of being adrift in space.

"I know this is the wrong time to be thinking about this, but this mission could very well be a one way ticket for us. There's no telling how much or how little room for error we'll have once we're among the Breen." Liz said. "And if they find us…."

"I plan on coming back to my husband and girls." Hoshi said sternly. "I am not going to allow anything to happen that will cause me to do otherwise. We are going to succeed in this mission and get safely back to the Alexandria and you are not going to say anything that is to the contrary. That is an order, Lieutenant."

Liz was a bit surprised by Hoshi's sudden turn of personality. She then realized that Hoshi was just as scared about this mission as she was but was determined to get back to her family, a family that she was very protective of, a family that she was going to see again. Liz stayed quiet, not wanting to upset Hoshi by saying the wrong thing.

Hoshi noticed the distance between her and Liz and how quiet she had become. Hoshi had decided that she had come across Liz a bit strong because of how true her statement was and she didn't want to think on what would happen if they were found out. She let out a small sigh. "The best thing you can do is relax your mind and pay attention to your sense and your instincts. Feel the rhythm of their culture and try to stay aware of who other people seem to be listening to, or pushing around or ignoring."

A comm unit built into the side of the pod screeched with metallic sounding noise, turning Hoshi's and Liz's heads. "So soon?" Liz asked. "It's been less than four hours."

"Captain Allensworth warned us the patrol ship was closer than we'd expected. Apparently, they're also faster than we expected." She picked up her helmet and lowered it into place. "Time to suit up."

Liz donned her helmet, and immediately the metallic noise from the comm speaker was rendered into a masculine voice speaking in English. "…is the Confederate frigate Zott. We have received your distress signal. Respond and confirm your status.

Hoshi reached up and opened a reply channel. "Zott, this is Pod twenty-three of the privateer Caposkir. There are two of us aboard." Checking the pod's status display, she added, "All systems stable, homing beacon coordinates verified."

"Acknowledged, Caposkir Twenty-three. Stand by for our tractor beam. We'll have you aboard in a few minutes. Zott out."

The channel went quiet. The pod lurched, and then a deep vibration resounded through its hull. Moments later, from outside, came the sounds of mechanical grapples seizing hold of the pod, and the dull scrape of the tiny emergency vehicle touching down on a hangar deck.

Hoshi drew a deep breath and mentally prepared herself. She looked at Liz, who returned the gaze and they both nodded to each other just before the pod's main hatch was opened from the outside.


	6. Dealing With Ghosts

Hoshi stayed clear of the pod's hatchway as a Breen military officer helped Liz out of the escape craft. She clambered over the side and into the helping hands of several other Breen personnel. As soon as the way was clear, Hoshi followed her. The ship's crew assisted her as well, and she found herself standing beside Liz in the hangar of a Breen warship, surround by half a dozen of its crew.

"I am Chot Rin, executive officer." said the one standing apart from the others and closes to Hoshi and Liz. Recalling the mission briefing, Hoshi recognized chot as a senior military rank roughly equivalent to a commander. "You two are lucky to be alive. Identify yourselves."

"Ec Lair, communications." Hoshi said.

"Lum Iere." Liz said. "Anthropologist."

Rin beckoned one of his men, who stepped forward and scanned Hoshi and Liz with a small handheld device.

"IDs confirmed." He said. "No signs of injuries or radiation exposure. Cleared for boarding."

"Very well." Rin said. He looked at Liz and Hoshi. "We are near the end of our patrol cruise. If you drop you off at Memchr, will you be able to continue on your own from there?" Both Hoshi and Liz nodded to Rin. "Do you have any objection to sharing quarters?" They both shook their heads. "Good. We will notify you when it is time to disembark. I believe we will reach Memchr in about ten hours." Rin then looked to another crewman. "Kutin, put them in the spare quarters on deck seven."

"Yes, sir." Kutin said stepping away from his shipmates and motioned for Hoshi and Liz to follow him. The pair walked behind the Breen crewman. As they crossed the hangar deck, Hoshi scouted his surroundings. As her eyes focused on various bulkheads and portals marked with Breen symbols, her helmet's HUD translated them into English words and Arabic numerals, providing her with real time tutorial in the Breen's written language.

Kutin led the two through a few turns in the ship's corridors and then into a turbolift that took them up one deck. The ship's passageways and conveyances were dimly lit and bereft of obvious design touches. Everything about the ship felt generic, as if it had been created with the intention of not expressing any kind of cultural identity.

_This would fit the theory of the Breen being a multispecies society. _Hoshi mused.

They stopped at a door. Kutin unlocked it. "Stay inside unless you are summoned." The door slid open and the pair stepped inside. "Do not wander the ship without permission and an official escort."

"We understand." Hoshi said.

The door shut leaving Hoshi and Liz alone. The pair surveyed their close quarters.

"Cozy." Liz said.

Meanwhile, Allensworth looked up as Lieutenant McKenzie reported. "The Breen ship has recovered the escape pod, Captain." The operations officer swiveled in her chair to face Allensworth. "They're resumed their previous course and are en route to Memchr at warp seven."

Looking over to his left at M'Ress, he asked. "Has the Breen patrol ship made any long range subspace transmissions picking up the pod?"

M'Ress shook her head. "No, sir. They seem to have resumed radio silence."

"That's a good sign." Merriell said.

"Maybe." Allensworth said. "At the very least, its not an obvious bad sign, and for now that's good enough." Had the crew of the patrol ship recognized Hoshi and Liz as impostors, they likely would already have contacted their command base to request further orders or arrange for the transfer of their prisoners. A worried murmur from the ops station caught Allensworth's attention. Merriell got up and leaned over Johnson's shoulder to look at the sensor readings. The two argued with each other in whispers. Their whispering aroused Allensworth's curiosity. "Report."

"Sir, it looks like a sensor ghost. Probably just a gravitational lensing effect caused by our proximity to the cluster."

"That's one explanation." Allensworth said. His eyes shifted to Ra'chel. "Something tells me you have a different hypothesis."

Entering a few commands in her console, Ra'chel was able to bring up a series of enhanced sensor graphs on her console. "I think it might be evidence of a cloaked ship shadowing our movements."

"Klingon or Romulan?" Allensworth asked.

"Based on the gravitational artifacts, I'd say Romulan, sir. Most likely a side effect of the artificial singularity a war bird would use as its main power source."

Lieutenant Commander Violet walked over from her science station to the tactical console where Lieutenant McKenzie was standing. The two of them looked over the data and began their own analyses. Allensworth saw their facial expressions.

"Thoughts?" He asked.

"Inconclusive." McKenzie said.

"But it's definitely not good." Violet said, punctuating her opinion with a frown. "Stellar phenomena can produce gravitational effects like these, and they can also emit these sort of particles, but few stars do both. And the odds of a singularity as small as this one surviving in nature without evaporating or rapidly swelling in size are astronomical." She shook her head. "I'd bet that we've got a Romulan warbird on our tail."

Allensworth and Merriell traded worried looks. Returning to the command chair, Allensworth said, "McKenzie, Violet, review our sensor logs. Start with the most recent and work your way back. I need to know where and when we picked up this shadow."

The two women nodded and set themselves to the task. Merriell sidled over to Allensworth. "If that warbird saw us stage the fight between the privateer and the corsair, our agents' cover story is blown."

"In which case." Allensworth said. "We'll have to decide whether to cut and run or find a way to neutralize that warbird without starting a war."

"Easier said than done, sir." Merriell said with some doubt. "Warbirds don't usually fly solo. If we see one, there are probably two more waiting in the wings. And it's not that I don't have faith in our ship and crew, but I don't think even we would last long against three warbirds."

"Calm down, Alex." Jermaine said. "Anticipate problems, but don't feel like you need to invent them. Right now we have one warbird to deal with. Focus on that and worry about its possible wingmen later."

"One crisis at a time, eh?"

"Exactly. Now, help McKenzie and Violet. I need those sensor analyses on the double."

"Yes, sir." Merriell said walking to the aft section of the bridge. He stood behind the two women, keeping watch over their backward search through the ship's sensor archives. "We got something, sir." He said minutes later.

Allensworth got up and approached the three of them. Lieutenant Commander Violet spoke first. "The first sign of that 'sensor echo' occurred five minutes before the Breen patrol ship entered weapons range. We suspect that a Romulan warbird, maybe something smaller, is acting as an advance scout for the Breen patrol ship. They probably scan ahead and try to prevent their allies from blundering into an ambush."

"Smart tactic." Allensworth said. "I'll have to remember that one."

"The good news, sir." Merriell said. "Is that based on Violet's projections of the cloaked ship's most likely flight path and velocity, it would've been too far away to detect our ruse during the staged battle."

"Good." Allensworth said. "Chalk that up as a lucky break, then. Unfortunately, now that we have a shadow, it'll probably stick with us. And now that's going to be a problem." He looked over to Dowey at the navigation console. "Lieutenant, call up as star chart that shows this and all adjacent sectors." Allensworth walked to the front of the bridge and peered over Dowey's shoulder.

"Aye, sir." Dowey said as he obeyed the captain's order.

The starmap appeared on Dowey's console and Allensworth studied it for a moment while a scheme took shape in his head. "Adjust our patrol route." He said pointing at a destination along their path. "Run along side, a bit closer to the Boreck system. Put us within half a light year of its outer comet ring."

Dowey looked nervous as he glanced up at Allensworth. "Are you sure, sir? Boreck's a major port for the Breen fleet."

"I'm aware of that, Lieutenant. The Breen built a port there because of the cluster we're near practically surrounds that system, making it almost impossible for us to spy on it without showing ourselves right on their doorstep."

"You mean like what we're about to do?" Merriell asked.

"Exactly as we're about to do." Allensworth said. "M'Ress tell Starfleet Command about this change to our flight plan. And be sure to use Encryption Protocol Sierra Nine Black Alpha."

M'Ress had a confused look on her face. "Are you sure, Captain? The latest update from Starfleet Command recommends using Bravo One Green Omega."

"What, did everyone get a memo about questioning my orders today? You have your orders, Commander."

"Aye, sir."

Allensworth settled back into his chair as his crew set to work on the course change. Merriell returned to his side, his calm persona masked his dire concern. "You know that cruising that close to their port is like daring them to come and get us."

"I know." Allensworth said. "Now let's see how badly they want us."


	7. Infiltration

The journey to the planet's surface was brief. From orbit, Memchr looked like a gray ball of rock cloaked in lighter gray ice. Closer to the surface, as the shuttle neared the spaceport, Hoshi looked out across the desolate landscape and realized this world lived up to its first impression. Bleak plains of broken stone were blanketed with ice and slush and scoured by curtains of wind driven rain. "For a colony world," Hoshi said, "it doesn't show much in a way of development." She nodded at the speck of a spaceport growing larger outside the cockpit's windshield. "If that's the center of town, don't blink or you'll miss it."

They stopped their conversation as the shuttle descended to a landing pad. It touched down with barely any sensation of contact, and the starboard hatch lifted open, admitting a spray of rain on a howling gale. The pilot looked back at Hoshi and Liz. "Get out." The two of them scrambled through the hatchway and out into the storm. Trudging against a stiff and shrill headwind, Hoshi noted that the spaceport amounted to little more than a few large, ramshackle buildings ringed by landing pads. A few other shuttlecraft were arriving, and several more stood on different pads, awaiting passengers.

Hoshi nudged Liz's arm and nodded at a handful of what looked like Breen civilians heading inside the spaceport. They wore helmets similar to those used by the Breen military, but instead of armor they were attired in drab, clothes, boots and gloves. Every square centimeter of their bodies were covered. "If follow them, they might lead us to the colony." She said.

"It's worth a try." Liz shrugged.

They trailed the quartet of civilians into a high ceiling facility that was alive with echoing footsteps and an oppressive droning caused by reverberations from the Breen's vocoders. A few armed Breen soldiers stood watch at various points on different levels of the facility. The place felt glumly efficient. Unarmed but uniformed Breen personnel ushered civilians through security checkpoints, verifying indentichips, and scanned both incoming and outgoing cargo and luggage.

They were unable to see past the dense knot of people ahead of them at the security checkpoint. "Can you see where they're going once they reach the other side?" Hoshi asked.

"No. But I don't see an exit on the other side, do you?" Liz asked.

Hoshi shook her head. She wondered if perhaps she and Liz had taken a wrong turn. Though she hadn't thought of herself and Liz as being in line for the checkpoint, when he tried to turn around, there were other Breen queuing up behind them.

"Keep moving forward." A Breen soldier said pointing at Hoshi.

Liz grabbed Hoshi's arm and pulled her toward the checkpoint. "Now we find out how convincing our indentichips are."

Their turn at the checkpoint was over in a moment. One guard passed a scanning device in front of Hoshi and Liz, and the other studied the readout on a small display. The forged identity profiles appeared on the second guard's screen, and he gave them a cursory once over before waving Liz and Hoshi through the scanning station to a downward sloped moving walkway that carried them in a blur.

"All right. We made it through." Liz said looking back.

"Great." Hoshi said. "But where are we going?"

Seconds later, she had an answer. The walkway leveled out and disgorged its passengers onto a broad thoroughfare, high above a chasm within which had been constructed a massive underground city. The subterranean metropolis was crisscrossed with bridges, walkways, cables, lights, and pipes, and it bustled with throngs of pedestrians and tiny antigrav propelled bots that zipped to and from. The air was heavy with food scents, hazy with smoke, buzzing with vocoders noise and alive with music. Looking up, Hoshi saw a dome of rough hewn stone festooned with hanging lights, antennas, cabling, and loudspeakers that filled the air with booming announcements in a stentorian voice of authority.

"Well, we now know why Breen colonies always look so sparse." Hoshi said. "They're ninety-five percent underground."

Every twist and turn Hoshi and Liz explored led them deeper into the Breen's hidden metropolis, whose lower levels were packed with civilians, all garbed in simple garments of neutral colors, grays and beiges, with an occasional hint of dark brown, and snout shaped masks that left Hoshi wondering how the Breen were able to tell one another apart.

Most surprising to her, however, was the sultry climate of the city's deepest environs. Heat surged up from the pitch black abyss that yawned in the center of the city, and the streets were hot and teeming with activity, thick and smoky haze and savory aromas. Atonal music wafted from distant chambers and mixed with the squawking of vocoders. A gaggle of short humanoids whose slightness of frame led Hoshi to speculate they might be adolescents flowed around her and Liz. As they passed, Hoshi noted that several of them were carrying swaddled infants in pouches slung across their chests or balanced on their hips. She looked more closely at one of the infants, hoping to see an unmasked Breen face, but saw only smaller, less detailed version of the Breen mask staring back at her.

Liz beckoned Hoshi with a sideways nod toward a distant intersection to which she followed her. Though she was grateful for the information provided by her mask's HUD, its constant intrusions into her field of vision had begun to annoy her. Many of its notes seemed superfluous, so she used her suit's internal voice command module to turn off certain notifications and override the translation of selected symbols. Only after she had done so did she realize why she had needed to. She was assimilating elements of the Breen language. This had been the hardest language to learn for her because of the vocoders. However, she knew with time she'd throw this into the pile of the many other languages she knew.

More elusive than the Breen's language were the tiny nonverbal cues that seemed to serve as the basis for communication between individuals. Because of their ubiquitous use of mask, the Breen could not take their cues from facial micro-expressions, as did so many humanoid species throughout local space. Instead, they appeared to have incorporated a subtle and complex form of sign language to augment their verbal interactions.

Observing exchanges of currency and goods, Hoshi and Liz noted that body language also seemed to play a role in Breen discourse. Distance, angle, and even the specific posture of the head, torso and limbs could convey meanings, telegraph emotional states, or be used to gain social dominance. It troubled Hoshi to think that a nod at the wrong time or a nervous fidget could easily lead to her and Liz being exposed and killed.

They neared a busy intersection beside a broad walkway that bridged the chasm. In the center of the crossroads stood a cluster of tall, four sided obelisks made of black granite. The faces of each obelisk sported a computer interface. Liz led Hoshi through the crowd to the nearest open computer terminal.

"It's a public information kiosk." Liz said, continuing to use their private comm channel. Breen symbols raced across the screen from left to right. "It's moving too quickly for my HUD to translate."

Hoshi moved closer and huddled against her so that she could see the screen. "What are you looking for?"

"Lodging. We need to get off the street and set up a base."

"I can't translate it either. It's moving too fast for even me to catch up. It might be a few more days before the learning circuits in our HUDs can keep up with that thing."

"What do we do for shelter until then? Knock on random doors and hope for the kindness of alien strangers?"

Hoshi looked up at the walls of the city, which were honeycombed with dwellings aglow with amber light. "Hardly. Maintaining a city this size underground requires infrastructure for power and ventilation. If we can find a way inside some of it, we can buy ourselves some time." She leaned against the bridge's railing and looked out and down. "There, between levels. See those fans? I bet those are part of air filtering system. I bet we'll find maintenance hatches down some of those empty alleys."

Liz just stared at the communication's officer. "Are you sure, you're just communications on the ship?"

Hoshi smiled behind her helmet. "You don't marry the chief engineer and not pick up a few things."

Liz noticed a passing drone that flew past them. "What if those hatches are monitored? Or secured inside official buildings? I doubt a people as paranoid as the Breen would leave vital areas of the civil infrastructure accessible to the public. Even the Cardassians were paranoid in the years before the Dominion War and they didn't even take extraordinary measures to secure their old water supply."

"They didn't need them after the introduction of replicators. Once they shut down the old plumbing, it was sealed off and forgotten. But the Breen's air system is open and active."

Liz was a bit surprised by Hoshi's knowledge of the Cardassian culture. Hoshi could feel her partner staring at her and she smiled again. "Dustin is also the ship's historian."

The two of them stared at the spinning blades of a giant fan that filled the mouth of a tunnel dozens of meters below the bridge. "If I were the Breen," Liz said. "I'd be more worried about defending the air system from an outside attack and not from civilians."

"Maybe. However, the air system might not be the best place to hide and it may not be our only option." Hoshi said.

"What do you mean?" Liz asked.

Hoshi walked to a narrow passage that had been excavated from the bedrock. She then looked up and then pointed. Liz looked up and saw that several groups of wires converged into the sliver of an alleyway. When she and Hoshi reached its dead end, Hoshi turned on her palm light and used its beam to trace a path of ladder like grooves cut into the rear wall. At its apex was a deep alcove containing a bulky piece of machinery to which all cables were linked. Beside the device was a metal door.

It was an easy climb, but the alcove at the top was barely large enough for them both to stand in at the same time. Hoshi pinned her arms at her sides to make room for Liz while she used dsome of her Starfleet Intelligence provided tools to disable the door's alarm and then pick its lock which released with a hollow clang. To Hoshi's relief, the door swung inward and into a long, gently curving passageway lit by widely set dim panels on its rocky ceiling. Its walls were lined with cables, power lines, and small components. It stretched away for nearly a hundred meters, past several intersections, before vanishing beyond its curve.

Hoshi moved past Liz and stopped a few meters inside. Liz stepped in, shut the door behind her, and used her tools to relock it. She tucked the tiny device back into its pocket on her disguise.

"Don't worry about the internal sensors. They're tied to the alarms, which I deactivated." She said. Liz removed her helmet and her sweat soaked brown hair tumbled in a mess about her face as she sighed with relief. She looked at Hoshi who was also taking off her helmet. "Welcome to our new home away from home."


	8. Evasion

Street noise and golden light seeped in through the sliver thin gap between the door and its jamb. Fleeting shadows hinted at brisk pedestrian traffic outside. Liz listened, and at the first sign of a lull she pushed the door open just enough to slip through. "Come on." She said. Hoshi darted out and looked around to see if they'd been observed. The few Breen civilians passing by did not seem to have noticed Liz and Hoshi emerge from a door that said "restricted area." Liz closed the and locked the door. "Let's get out of here." She said.

Purposeful strides and a minimum of conversation helped them blend back into the crowd of Breen pedestrians, which carried them away like a strong tide. They stayed close to each other, and Hoshi let Liz decide which paths to take at intersections. After they had walked for what felt like about an hour, Liz stopped and ducked into a narrow alley beside a wide, brightly lit boulevard packed with retail merchants, food vendors and what Hoshi surmised were office buildings. Most of the stores were fronted by huge video screens that displayed a steady torrent of product images.

"This is just what we need." Liz said. "A variety of businesses and civilians who look like they hail from more than one social stratum. I would love to study them more."

The two of them stood there, using their helmet's sensors to eavesdrop on conversations, and pay attention to the speakers' body language. Hoshi was grasping the Breen language while Liz studied the Breens' interactions with one another. Suddenly, Hoshi put her hand on Liz's shoulder, causing the anthropologist's attention to turn to Hoshi. Hoshi put up a finger as she listened. Someone's one sided conversation had caught Hoshi's attention. She was unable to figure who it was but she knew that she and Liz were the topic of the conversation. "We've got to go. Someone is reporting us."

Liz nodded and the two of them merged back into the fast moving crowd. Behind them a siren wailed and the siren was getting closer.

On any world and in any language, Hoshi knew that was a bad sound. Liz thought the same thing as well and the two started running.

They bladed through dense knots of people blocking their way. More sirens wailed from other directions, ahead of them and from side streets.

Crowds stopped, congesting the streets and rendering Hoshi and Liz conspicuous by virtue of the fact they were running. None of the civilians made any effort to stop them, but their passive obstruction of the streets was a major hindrance to the duo's escape.

"STOP!" A voice shouted from behind.

"We have to get off the streets." Hoshi said.

"Yes but we can't lead them to our hiding place." Liz said.

Looking around for an escape, Hoshi saw stairs beneath a sign that was for the mass transit system. "This way." Running, she elbowed one civilian out of her way and hip checked another clear of her path.

Disruptor bolts ripped apart the sign above Hoshi's head as she and Liz sprinted down the stairs. Civilians scattered in a panic as several more shots screamed past the staircase. Hoshi and Liz dashed across the platform and through a massive scanning arch as civilians scrambled out of their path or dropped to the ground. The percussion of running footsteps echoed off stone walls and ceilings. Warning alarms buzzed, low and angry, reverberating in the transit station and nearly drowning out the hum of an arriving train.

Conditioned by living aboard a starship, Hoshi expected the doors of the train to open ahead of her as soon as it stopped. Instead, she collided with the train's closed doors and fell backward. In the fraction of a second between her head hitting the train door and her body hitting the ground, a disruptor bolt streaked by her.

Liz dropped to one knee, drew her own disruptor, and returned fire. "Get inside." She said over the screech of weapon fire.

Hoshi scrambled to her feet, leaped over the remaining half of the door, and somersaulted to her feet inside the train. Pivoting about face, she drew her disruptor, shot out one of the train's windows, and laid down suppressive fire at their Breen pursuers. "Come on." she called out. "I'll cover you."

Liz snapped off a few more shots, then turned, ran to the half door and hurdled over it. Breen civilians inside the train cowered and shrank from Liz and Hoshi. "We have to move." Liz said. "Head for the driver's cab and stay down." She ducked and hurried toward the front of the train shooting out more windows as she laid down suppressive fire on the run.

Disruptor pulses peppered the train, showering the duo with sparks and shrapnel as ricochets slammed into the civilians around them. Hoshi blasted apart the lock on the door leading to the first car of the train and pushed the door open. As she lurched into the next car, a flurry of energy blasts tore through the metal skin of the train, and a stray shot cut a searing wound through the top of her thigh.

She howled in pain but forced herself to stagger onward toward the driver's cab. Liz rushed into the lead car and caught up to her. "Are you all right?"

"No." Hoshi snapped. "Do what you have to do, I'll cover you."

While Hoshi fired her disruptor in the general direction of their pursuers, Liz charged to the driver's cab, shot of its lock and yanked the door open. "Out." She said, pulling the driver by the front of his uniform and tossing him aside.

All of the train's doors opened and Liz announced for all of the passengers to get out. The civilians raced off the train and straight into the law enforcement personnel chasing Liz and Hoshi. Liz closed the train's doors and the train lurched forward and accelerated with frightening speed. In seconds the whine of disruptor shots faded away, leaving only the quiet hum of the train's magnetic generators. The Liz leaned her head out of the driver's cab. "Hold onto something heavy."

Hoshi wrapped her arms around a seat rail, and prepared for the worst. The train slammed to a stop as if it had struck a solid barrier, and the sudden deceleration hurled Hoshi against the car's forward wall. All she could hear was the groaning of stressed metal as the train's emergency brakes strained to absorb its momentum. Then the bone crushing pressure of the high speed stop abated, and Hoshi almost relaxed, until another pang of red hot pain in her leg reminded her that she'd been shot.

"Can you walk?" Liz asked as she stumbled out of the driver's cab.

"Not without help." She said. She started opening a pouch on her suit to retrieve a medkit. "It'll take a me a few minutes to fix it."

Liz thrust her hands into Hoshi's armpits and lifted her to her feet. "We don't have a few minutes right now." She reached inside the cab and pressed a button that opened the train's doors. "We need to get off this train and into the city's transportation system. If it's like most cities' transit networks, it probably has old tunnels that are no longer in use."

She let Liz help her out of the train and down to the tracks. Once they were on foot, it was easy to see that Liz's prediction had been correct: there were many levels of tunnels and several lines running parallel to one another. A few had obviously fallen out of use and been allowed to sink into darkness and disrepair. Within a few minutes of abandoning the train, they had retreated deep into a long forgotten corner of the Breen city.

Limping along with her arm draped over Liz's shoulders for support, Hoshi asked, "What if they find traces of my DNA on the train?"

"They won't" Liz said.

"How can you be sure?" Hoshi asked.

Somewhere above and behind them, a powerful explosion quaked the bedrock and rained dust on their heads. Liz looked at Hoshi and smiled. "Let's just say I took a few precautions."


	9. Possible Trap

The image of space looked empty and serene as warp distorted starlight stretched away from the center of the Alexandria's main viewscreen, but Commander Alex Merriell remained wary. He was reviewing a steady stream of tactical updates from Lieutenant McKenzie and sensor analyses from Lieutenant Commander Johnson, who both were nearing the end of their second full shift on the bridge.

Fast moving sensor contacts that had originated in the system were on intercept courses for the Alexandria as it cruised along the edge of Breen territory. Merriell had counted seven Breen ships, including two Chel Gret attack cruisers. Their combined firepower would be more than enough to destroy the Alexandria.

_Ideally, we'd outrun them. _He thought to himself. Under normal circumstances the Alexandria could easily outpace the Breen ships. Unfortunately, the Alexandria's current course left it hemmed in on three sides by the cluster that was notorious for swallowing ships that got too close to its gravitational effects and the Breen ships that were flanking the Sovereign class starship.

Forward and backward were the only two ways to go. Merriell eyed the tactical map beside the command chair, which showed McKenzie's report about the Breen fleet, and then glanced at the navigational chart on the other side of the center chair. That display highlighted Johnson's analysis of the ship's latest sensor sweeps, all of which suggested that the Breen ships were not the only threat in the sector but merely the most obvious one.

_At this rate, they'll have us surrounded very shortly. Even if the Breen stay on their side of the border, it would take only a few Romulan warbirds to put us down and that'll leave no one to extract Liz and Hoshi._

The suddenness of the captain's voice coming through the intercom brought Alex out of his thoughts. "Allensworth to Commander Merriell."

"Go ahead, Captain." Alex said.

"I want you to make a course correction." Allensworth said. "Drop us out of warp, bring us hard about, and retrace our path."

The order caught Merriell off guard and he exchanged looks with Dowey and Johnson. "Sir, could you confirm that you want us to double back?"

"That's correct, Commander. Once we turn around, increase speed to warp nine. I want to see the Breen try to keep up, and I really want to see what those sensor ghosts on our aft quarter do when we start moving directly toward them."

Chot Lar entered her office and closed the door. She hoped that her supervisor and coworkers hadn't noticed her lethargic manner. She was still adapting to working the second shift, to which she had been transferred only a few days ago. For her the hardest part was transitioning to a new sleep schedule, despite the ease with which her peers seemed to move between shifts. Nar found it exhausting and disorienting.

She settled into her chair and keyed her authorization code into her computer. Her computer powered up and an alert appeared on her holographic display. She opened the message, expecting another one of her supervisor's time wasting emergencies.

It was an automated error notice from the urban surveillance network. As one of the Breen Intelligence Department's midlevel intelligence analysts, Nar performed troubleshooting and maintenance when something went wrong with its software. Most glitches in the system wre minor and easily repaired.

As soon as she saw the complete report, she froze. This was no simple malfunction, no inconsequential dropped bit of data. Nar had never seen anything like it, though she ahd heard of similar incidents happening in the years before she had been assigned to the intelligence department.

She looked at the graph on her display. She saw right away that there was nothing random about the errors. They moved in steady progression down city blocks and appeared and disappeared near maintenance access points.

_This is not good. _

She created a secure channel using an encryption protocol to which, by law, she should not have had access. In minutes she had tapped into 184 remote surveillance cameras that had views on the streets where the errors had occurred and she began downloading their memory logs.

"Computer, initiate a search for visual commonalities among persons near terminals that reported errors at each site during the referenced time indexes."

Almost as soon as the program started working, Nar's display began to fill with side by side freeze frames taken from different cameras. In each pair of images, two figures had been highlighted. Always the duo moved in close proximity to each other and Nar had noticed that they were the targets of a security action that had ended in a public firefight and the hijacking of a civil transit train.

_That can't be a coincidence._

She looked up the last reported error. It had occurred at an information kiosk in the industrial zone on Level Forty-seven. On a hunch, Nar accessed the search activity log for that kiosk and noted what the fugitives had been looking for.

It came as little surprise to Nar that they were seeking government and military facilities. She knew that going after the fugitives on her own was a dangerous plan, but the alternative was to watch them be captured by other intelligence operatives who would in turn be richly rewarded.

She uploaded an image of the fugitives to her personal comm unit, programmed her computer to send her real time updates of any new errors in the network. Getting out of the building would not be a challenge. Getting away with what she planned to do would be.

The mayday that crackled from the overhead speakers of the Alexandria's bridge was garbled and interrupted by bursts of background noise.

"Analysis." Allensworth said, swiveling his chair toward McKenzie.

The security chief looked up from her console. "The ship is a civilian freighter designed for the transport of perishable goods. She shipped out of from Deep Space Nine five days ago with mixed cargo. Crew complement, approximately forty personnel."

Johnson chimed in from her station. "Based on the ship's rated cruising speed of warp five, the coordinates of her last transmission are within her flight range from Deep Space Nine. Her comm signal is weak though. I doubt anyone but us has picked it up."

"How convenient." Allensworth said. "Ra'chel, are there any known navigational hazards in the vicinity of the ship's transmission?"

"Several." She said. "That regoin is on the edge of the cluster. She might have encountered a gravitational anomaly or maybe a cosmic…"

"Noted." Allensworth said cutting her off. "Lieutenant Dowey, can we confirm the ship's position and status?"

"Not at this range, Captain." He said.

Allensworth threw a look at Merriell. "Your thoughts, Alex?"

"Sounds like a trap, sir. It's just far enough away that we can't verify the message without moving off station from the Breen border, and it's in a region where we'd be out of contact with Starfleet." Alex frowned. "The perfect place for an ambush."

"Agreed." Allensworth said. "Mister Dowey, set a course for the ship's last known coordinates, warp nine."

"Aye, Captain." Dowey said.

"Commander M'Ress, transmit a response to the freighter and let them know we're en route. Notify me if and when they acknowledge."

Merriell and McKenzie exchanged concerned glances. "Captain, why are we taking the bait if we know it's a trap?"

"First." Allensworth said. "We don't know it's a trap, we only suspect it's a trap. It's possible the freighter really is in trouble and we're required by law to investigate and render aid. Second, even if this is a ruse to move us out of position, we have to play along."

Merriell raised and eyebrow. "Why's that, sir?"

"Because if we don't respond to the freighter's mayday, we'll be telling the Breen and their allies that we have a more urgent mission that compels us to remain on their border, in which case we might as well confess that we're supporting a covert mission inside their territory."

"Course ready, Captain." Dowey said.

"Hit it." Allensworth said.

With a single tap on his console, Dowey propelled the Alexandria to warp speed on its new heading. Merriell leaned towards the captain and whispered. "If the Alliance set this trap, that means they already suspect what we're up to. So what does it matter if we play along?"

"It's called 'plausible deniability,' Alex. We're not doing this for our benefit. We're doing it so some politician can have the upper hand when the Alliance's ambassador comes looking to complain about us lurking on the Breen's border."

"And what if this isn't just about moving us out of position? What if we're being set up for an ambush by the Alliance."

Allensworth smiled. "We'll burn the bridge when we come to it."


	10. H'ren Char

They arrived at the end of the ledge. Liz kneeled, peering down at the street below. "There's enough shadow beneath us to cover our descent." She said. "As far how we get inside the comm , she comm center, I'm still working on that."

After making the appropriate adjustments to her armor, she readied herself to tumble over the edge. In seconds, she rappelled down the wall and vanished into the darkness. Hoshi followed after a few seconds. Once they both were in the shadows they waited a bit.

Liz leaned up against the wall and Hoshi sat next to her. The Japanese comm officer noticed a bit of frustration that was in Liz's voice when she last spoke.

"What's wrong?" Hoshi asked.

"Nothing is wrong."

"Liz, I can hear it in your voice." Hoshi said. "You're talking to the girl who can become fluent in a language by only hearing it once."

Liz let out a sigh, knowing that she was right. "I mean, it's just that….you seem way too calm about all this." Liz said.

"What do you mean?" Hoshi asked.

"I mean is that you're too damn calm." Liz said. "The entire Federation is counting on us and you're acting like it's just another day."

"What would you like me to say? Would you rather I just give up? Or would you want me to say pessimistic remarks?" Hoshi said, with her tone raised slightly but giving off a bit of authority.

"I am not pessimistic, but I know enough about the reality of the situation." Liz shot back.

"There's nothing wrong with that but it wouldn't be a problem to show some optimism." Hoshi said. "We've done well so far with this mission."

"With the exception of the Breen firing at us." Liz said. "We are on a planet far from our ship, our home not to mention the Breen are out looking for us and we might not get back home, just what is there to be optimistic about?"

"We still have time to complete this mission. We haven't been found by the Breen and we've been eluding them so far." Hoshi said.

"There comes a point where you start to feel the pressure. You can't sit there and tell me that you don't feel at least a little pressure." Liz said.

"I don't make it about the entire Federation hanging in the balance."

"What do you make it about?" Liz asked now more curious then frustrated.

"I'm not smart enough to save the entire Federation so I don't even try, but saving three. That I can do."

"Three? You're talking about Commander Zofchak and the Twins." Liz said.

"They mean more to me than you can know." Hoshi said. "I'd give my life if it would save theirs. Don't get me wrong, I know what's at stake here but at the end of the day all that matters is making the Federation safe for them. One thing worse than losing a war is fighting for something and you don't know why. I know what I'm fighting for. Do you?"

"I thought I did." Liz said. "Saving the Federation from our enemies seemed to be enough but I never really thought about what I might be missing. Then I see you and your family together and it's hard not to want what you have."

"You have the captain don't you?" Hoshi said.

Liz looked at her with surprise and Hoshi grinned behind her helmet. "What, you didn't think some of us knew?"

Liz let out a nervous cough. "I think we should get going if we're going to get that comm center."

Hoshi nodded as the two of them stood up.

"What's the plan." Liz asked. Hoshi shrugged. "Don't tell me we're just going to go up and knock."

"I haven't ruled that out."

The doors opened, and three Breen officers left the building. Hoshi eyed the markings on their uniforms. "The one in front is a thot, which is like an admiral."

"If we follow them and get close enough to read the signals from their id cards, then we clone the id signatures and modify our suits with insignia like theirs. We might be able to access the entire base."

"That's actually a horrible plan." A voice said behind them.

Suddenly, Hoshi drew her weapon and spun around. Liz pivoted out of her way and looked back. Her finger started to tense on the trigger when Liz threw her hand in front of the disruptor. "Stop."

They were looking at a Breen in civilian clothing. Slight of frame, the Breen had recoiled from Liz and Hoshi, apparently in fear of being shot. Hoshi put her disruptor down and holstered it.

"My name is H'ren Char."

"I am Ec Lair." Hoshi said.

Liz nodded at Char. "Lum Iere."

"I doubt those are your real names." Char said.

"Why do you say that?" Hoshi asked.

"Because no one goes to all the trouble of having themselves zeroed just so they can go around giving out their true names." Char said.

"How do you know we've been zeroed?" Liz asked.

"That is how I found you." Char said. "The surveillance networks have been reprogrammed, people who have been zeroed trigger null value errors in the info grids. I thought all the fellowships had been warned. Did you come from one of the outer colonies?"

"You could say that." Liz said.

"I thought as much."

"Why is the plan to clone the thot's id chip a bad idea?"

"Because the surveillance networks will trigger an alert the moment it detects two chips with the same id signatures." Char said. She circled Hoshi and Liz and peeked in an anxious manner around the corner. "I need to get you off the streets. Come follow me. I will take you to my home and I will fix you id chips."

Liz looked at Hoshi, and for a moment she thought she was going to say something. "Then she turned and followed Char.

After a short time, the three of them arrived at Char's home. After the door opened, Char ushered in her two guests. After slipping past the door, she locked it after it slid shut. "Make yourselves comfortable."

The two of them stood in the middle of the main room and turned slowly as they examined their surroundings. Char could not imagine what they found so interesting about her residence, aside from a few pieces of art and other personal effects.

She went into her bedroom and unlocked the clasp on her helmet's air seal. It released with a sensation that always made Char think of a hand releasing a choke hold on her throat. With relief she pulled off her helmet and set it atop its stand on her dresser. Next she removed her gloves, revealing her delicate, crimson colored fingers. Piece by piece she stripped away her government mandated shell of identity, until she was able to turn and regard herself in the bedroom mirror. She let down her jade colored hair, a few strands fell in front of her wide, silver eyes and then she put on some comfortable clothes made of Tholian silk.

"Those two are being awfully quiet." She said to herself. "I hope nothing's wrong." She returned to the living room, where the two fugitives stood huddled in a corner, conversing in low metallic whispers that Char could no longer understand without her helmet to translate. "Forgive me for being critical but it is impolite to remain masked after your host has taken off their mask."

The pair stared at Char for a few seconds, long enough for her to begin to feel self conscious and then to become suspicious. "You're safe here." She said. "Please unmask yourselves."

The two looked at each other and they nodded in unison. They reached up, unlatched their seals and with almost grudging slowness pulled them off. When they looked up and met Char's gaze, her jaw fell open.

Char had seen every species that had ever lived under the Breen but until that moment she had never seen humans with her own eyes."


	11. Questions and No Answers

"You are Human." Char said.

"Yes." Liz said, holding up her hands with her palms facing Char. "We're civilian cultural observers from the United Federation of Planets. Our mission is peaceful, and we mean you no harm." The ease and calm with which Liz lied made Hoshi uneasy, but she trusted that she knew what she was doing, so she kept quiet as she continued. "We're grateful for your help and for shelter."

Char backed away half a step. "Civilians? Cultural observers?" She asked in a nervous voice. Liz nodded. "Then why were you trying to break into the military communications center? Why did you attack the soldiers in town?"

Liz shot Hoshi a quick look, as if to remind her to stay quiet. "First, we didn't attack the soldiers, they attacked us. We defended ourselves, and we did everything we could to get innocent civilians out of the crossfire. As for the comm center, it doesn't take a genius to see that your people live under constant surveillance. We thought that if we could access the comm facility we could gauge the scope of the surveillance program."

Char shook her head. "Then you were in the wrong place. The surveillance network is run by the Breen Intelligence Division, not the military."

"It's a civil government program?" Hoshi asked.

Char nodded. It is a subdivision of the Info Division." An uneasy silence followed Char's reply. Her voice and expression betrayed her suspicion as she asked, "What happens now that I have seen your faces?"

"Depends if you have some food." Hoshi said with a slight smile. "Maybe we could sit down, have a bite to eat and you could tell us things we don't know about the Breen."

"Like what?"

Unable to contain her curiosity, Liz spoke up. "I would love to know more about your species, starting with what you call yourselves."

After considering the question for a few seconds, Char spoke. "My people are called the Napaj. We are one of the founding members of the Confederacy."

Hoshi held up her helmet. "I'm guessing the snouts on these things weren't put on there for your benefit."

Char smiled with a faint hint of amusement. "No, that feature is to accommodate the Ailognom. They dwell on the far side of the Confederacy from Federation space. I do not think your people have ever encountered that particular species."

"One of the rumors I'd have heard was that Breen have no blood and need to wear refrigeration suits or else they'll evaporate."

"That's the Anihc." Char said.

"Are those the ones with the four lobed brain that foil telepaths?" Hoshi asked.

"No, those are the Aerok. They are also very strong and are one of the preeminent members of the Confederacy. They and the Acihc dominate the military because they best meet its performance requirements."

Settling into the chair diagonally across from Liz, Hoshi continued her gentle interrogation. "Are you saying certain occupations in Breen society are geared to favor particular species?"

"The Confederate Senate sets uniform standards of performance and service for all positions within the military, government and education systems."

"So why the masks?" Liz asked.

"To prevent any type of discrimination. It's not as if we don't ever see each other, the fact that I invited both of you to unmask should serve as proof of that." She took a deep breath and continued. "There is a small dissident culture that hides in the shadows of Breen cities. People who want to live openly. To be free."

"Why are you telling us all of this?" Liz asked.

"I am part of that small society. I use my job within the division to warn my friends of danger. With your help, I could provide them with something better."

Hoshi cocked an eyebrow. "What would that be?"

"Political asylum in the Federation."

Alex Merriell stood behind McKenzie at the tactical console, anxious for any sign that the Alexandria's high warp detour had not been in vain. He looked back and forth between the console and the main view screen. "Anything?"

"No sign of the freighter." McKenzie reported.

Moving across the bridge toward the science station, he asked Lieutenant Tessa Violet. "What about debris? Are we picking up any energy signatures from weapons fire?"

The redheaded lieutenant shook her head. "No, sir. Sensors are clear."

"I should've figured as much." Merriell said. The freighter had stopped transmitting its distress call when the Alexandria was still roughly an hour away from its last reported coordinates. It was a classic ploy for luring starships away from their designated routes and patrol sectors.

He walked over and sat in his chair next to Allensworth. The captain sat with his right leg crossed over his left at the knee and his arms folded across his chest. He looked remarkably sanguine, given the circumstances. "Captain, there's no sign of the freighter within sensor range. I think we have been played with."

Allensworth nodded. "Mister Dowey, plot a return course to the Breen border. Bring us about on a new heading and hold at full impulse."

"Aye, sir." Dowey said as he began keying commands into the console.

An enigmatic smile tugged at Allensworth's mouth. "If I'm right, this is all about to get a lot more interesting." He said.

"Right about what, Captain?" Alex asked.

The red alert klaxon wailed and the bridge lights dimmed as crimson panels flashed on the bulkheads. "Three Mogai class Romulan warbirds decloaking in attack formation. We're surrounded, Captain." Johnson reported.

Allensworth looked over to Merriell and pointed to the viewscreen. "About that." He then stood up and walked towards the viewscreen. "Shields up, Lieutenant."

"Something tells me they aren't here to answer the freighter's distress call." Zofchak said from his station.

"Hail them." Allensworth said.

"Channel open, sir." M'Ress said.

"This is Captain Jermaine Allensworth of the Starship Alexandria. You have ten seconds to respond and explain yourselves."

The main viewscreen changed to show the sharp cheekbones and prominent brow ridges of a Romulan male. His gaze was fierce and unblinking, reminding Allensworth on how Gowron never blinked. "Hello Captain Allensworth." The Romulan said with a hint of smugness in his voice. "I am Commander Arious of the warbird Sokerth. Your vessel is outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded."

"I'll give you two out of three." Allensworth said, flashing a cold smile at the Romulan. "You definitely outnumber us, and I can't deny we're surrounded."

His cockiness seemed to throw Arious off. He frowned. "You will lower your shields, surrender your ship and prepare to be boarded."

"The hell I will."

Arious seethed. "Let me be blunt, Captain. Surrender your ship or we will take it by force."

"I have a choice. That's nice of you, Commander." Allensworth replied with a mocking tone. Then he hardened his gaze and his tone. "My answer is still no."

"As you wish, Captain. Your crew's blood will be on your hands." He turned away and spoke to someone offscreen. "Lock weapons and…"

One of Arious's crew members spoke up. "Ships decloaking, sir."

The transmission from the warbird cut off, and the Alexandria's main viewer reverted to an image of one of the Romulan ships, with two new shapes rippling into view behind it.

McKenzie furrowed her brow as she reacted to alerts on her console. "Captain, five Klingon ships decloacking. They're locking weapons on the Romulan ships."

"We're being hailed by the Romulans." M'Ress said.

Allensworth walked back and sat down in his chair.

"Well played, Captain." Arious said with a look of annoyance.

"I couldn't have done it without your predictable nature and gullibility. This isn't even the first time you guys have fallen for this."

"This is far from over, Captain." Arious said.

"Say that to the Klingons. They'll be sticking around here for awhile." The screen switched to the view of the ships. "Mister Dowey, get us out of here, best possible speed"

"Aye, sir." He said as he engaged impulse engines to navigate clear of the standoff and headed back to the Breen border.

Allensworth turned to Alex with a slight smile on his face. "I think we should enjoy a good ambush now and again. Right, Commander?"

Alex looked at his captain and smiled.


	12. Sneaking Past

Allensworth knew something was wrong even before Merriell mentioned the fact. Merriell, stood at the tactical console with Lieutenant McKenzie.

"Put it on screen." Allensworth said.

Merriell relayed the data to the viewscreen. A map of the sectors surrounding the Alexandria's current position appeared. Dots of many colors and sizes marked the positions of nearby star systems, icons resembling different powers' national insignias indicated the whereabouts of allied and hostile starships. Allensworth made a rough count of the icons massed on the opposite side of the Breen-Federation border and was dismayed to note that they appeared to have multiplied since his crew's last sensor sweep of the area.

He turned in his chair toward the tactical console. "It looks as if the Alliance is flexing its muscles along the border, doesn't it, Commander?"

"Yes, sir, it does. We're looking at a mixed force of Breen and Romulan warships moving in a staggered formation, shadowing our course."

Johnson looked back from ops. "Is that their oh so subtle way of warning us to stay on our side of the border?" Johnson's Human side clearly coming out. Her Vulcan side would never have let such a "Human" comment to have slipped past her control.

McKenzie spoke up. "Sir, I'm reading more ships on their way. Tholian and Gorn."

"Commander Arious must have pitched a fit after the stunt we pulled on him." Zofchak said. "Could they be getting ready to come after us in force?"

"Doubtful." Allensworth said. "We're back within sensor range of Starbase One Three Seven. Unless the Alliance is itching to turn this cold war into a hot one, they won't attack us in plain sight of the rest of our forces." Allensworth got up and walked over to stand beside Johnson. "Show me a progression from the last three hours, the positions of the ships in the Breen fleet relative to us and the Rakis system."

As soon as the brief sequence played out on the screen, it became obvious to Allensworth what was happening. "They're maneuvering to keep themselves between us and Memchr. That's not an attack fleet, it's a blockade."

"We could blow past them at warp nine." Merriell said.

"I don't think so." Allensworth said. Their fleet is maintaining a steady distance from us. Look at these intervals, here and here." When we moved half a light year closer to the border, they dropped back the same distance. They're giving themselves room, which equals time to react if we try to race through."

Johnson held the sides of her console and leaned forward, her forehead creased with the effort of concentration. "There must be options. Ways to mask our energy signature, or blind their sensors for a few seconds."

"I don't suppose we could run back to Deep Space Nine and ask to borrow the Defiant's cloaking device?" Alex asked rubbing his scruffy chin.

"Wouldn't matter if we did." Zofchak said. "It's Romulan made. Those warbirds would see us coming half a sector away."

McKenzie spoke up. "Sir, there's another matter to consider. This map shows only those vessels we're able to detect. Given the sensor capabilities of the ships in the blockade, their deployment pattern is far from optimal. There are multiple gaps in their sensor net. Some of them are relatively minor but others are substantial."

"They're daring us to run it." Allensworth said, cracking a grin. "Which means that's probably where the cloaked ships are."

"What about sending in the Klingons?" Merriell asked.

Allensworth shook his head. "No, we played that card. The Romulans will be waiting for it. I anticipated their ambush site yesterday and had the Klingons move in and run silent till the warbirds showed themselves. But if we try to sneak a Klingon Bird of Prey into the Rakis system, odds are it will be detected and destroyed."

Merriell thought for a moment. "What if we don't ask the Klingons to break through the blockade but just smoke out the cloaked warbirds? They could get close enough to force the blockade to shift its deployment, it might open a gap that either we or a Klingon ship could exploit."

"I see what you're saying, Commander." Allensworth said. "Force them to pick their battle, the one they can see or the one they can't, and either way they lose." He nodded. "It would take a lot of cloaked ships, but it's worth a try. He turned his attention to McKenzie. "Jules, where is the nearest Klingon battle fleet?"

"Refueling at Starbase One Five One."

"M'Ress, hail Starfleet. We've got a blockade to run."

In spite of Char's preparations and Hoshi's assurances, Liz still felt queasy with anxiety as she and Hoshi approached the checkpoint for the government complex on Level Forty-seven. She was certain the automated screening devices would see through their disguises. If that happened, it would be too late to run. The check point was situated in the midst of an entire platoon of armed Breen soldiers.

Her fear of exposure persisted even after the guards ushered her and Hoshi through the checkpoint with speed and deference. Once their credentials had been scanned and verified, no one dared ask them any questions. All that the soldiers seemed to care about was moving them along to their destination as quickly as possible. As the duo walked away from the soldiers, Hoshi confided to Liz over their private comm channel, "One down, one to go."

They continued on until they arrived at the military comm center. Muttering over the encrypted channel, Liz spoke up. "Now for the real test of these identities." Char had manipulated their armors' insignias to look more authentic.

They stepped through and Liz paused to let the comm center's guards examin her ID chips and access cards. Liz expected the soldier in charge to at least ask what business a member of the civilian government had inside a military facility, but it never came. The guard motioned them to go through.

Neither of the two spies said anything until they were inside the building and away from the guard post. As they passed through the tomb quiet, lead colored lobby of the comm center, Hoshi looked around the room and found what she was looking for.

She walked over to the interactive panel and started tapping on different symbols. The screen showed floor plans, directions and information regarding which personnel were in command of which areas. It wasn't until Hoshi had finished skimming the high points of the intel that she realized that she had done so without the need for her visor's translation interface. While she was marveling at her new grasp of written Breen, Liz pointed at an isolated section of one floor plan.

"That's what were' looking for, on the twenty-first floor."

Following the line implied by her pointed finger, Hoshi eyed the schematic. "Auxiliary systems control?"

"Auxiliary systems tend to be not as heavily guarded." Liz said as she led the way to the nearest turbolift. They were in the elevator only a few seconds when the doors opened, revealing a corridor made of black marble. They reached the door that lead to Auxiliary control. They eyed a sensor pad beside the door.

"Feeling lucky?" Liz asked Hoshi.

"Ask me again in seven seconds." The door slide open and they walked in without hesitation. A lone Breen sat in the room. He stood up to confront Hoshi and Liz.

"Who are you? This area is restricted."

Hoshi spoke up immediately. "I am H'ren Prish and this his H'ren Garr. We have been sent by the Confederate Information Bureau to request your cooperation."

"I need to see confirmation of those orders before you access my console."

The Breen's demand was met by a moment of silence. Hoshi's hand shot forward and struck a blow into the Breen's throat. He gagged and staggered backward as Hoshi launched a jumping snap kick. She slammed her heel into the soldier's chin, which jerked back so hard that Liz thought she heard a snap. His body went limp and collapsed to the floor.

Hoshi then opened an access panel and shoved the body into it as Liz stood in total shock, staring at the body before Hoshi closed the panel. Hoshi could guess the look on Liz's face behind the helmet.

"Being on the run from the Xindi for twelve years as well as fighting Reptillian Xindi hand to hand during those twelve years will give you that sort of reaction time." Hoshi said. "I've killed a lot of Xindi like that, thanks to training by MACOs and Malcolm Reed." Hoshi mentioning her former crewmates on the NX-01 Enterprise caused her to hesitated in her duty for a moment. She did miss them but that was now in the past and her current duty was to sabotage the Breen's slipstream drive project.

After a few moments, Hoshi had found something. "A lot of encrypted files and communication messages, all marked for a special research division in the starship design area here on Memchr. I'll bet that's where the slipstream drive is." She pressed a few more buttons. "I'm downloading the data to a portable unit that we can analyze once we're safely out of here." She got up and stepped away from the interface. "Let's go."


	13. Interrogation and Evasion

Char awoke to darkness and the rough kiss of a coarse fabric on her face. She tried to reach up and pull away whatever had been draped over her head, only to find her hands were restrained behind her. Struggling to move, she quickly took stock of her predicament. The last thing she remembered was being jumped by dark armored Breen after she had led the two Humans to where they were going to get into the facility. Suddenly, she felt a jolt of electricity then a white flash of pain.

She was seated and her feet and hands were shackled into place. Inside the close confines of the hood, her breathing sounded loud, and desperate.

"H'ren Char." A masculine voice masked my the machine vocoders said. The hood was yanked off her head. A single blinding light assaulted her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut. Even with here eyes closed, the searing light was painful. "You are here to answer my questions."

"Who are you?" Char asked.

"Who I am is not important." The voice said. You are, however."

Char tried to shut out the overpowering shame of having been forcibly unmasked by a stranger. To remove one's mask before another was an intimate act reserved for family and friends. "I am no one that important."

"You give yourself not enough credit." The Breen said. "Your occupation gives you access to the surveillance network." Char looked up, able to get past the pain of the sudden light from the darkness. She judged the height and bulk of the Breen as part of the Aerok. "I guarantee you will tell me all I need and want to know. I know every little detail about you, including when, how and where your life will end."

The numerous enhancements Starfleet had made to their helmet visors were the only things that spared Hoshi from being blind and lost in the cloudy, polluted water. She spotted a shape in the gloom. "Ladder in the corner."

Liz was the first to reach the ladder and started climbing. They were on the ladder for a few moments when they reached the surface and out of the water. The two of them climbed out and onto a concrete ledge. "We have less than ten minutes to find our way onto that ship." Liz said pointing to the cargo ship.

Suddenly an alarm rang out. It's clanging loud, bright, and echoing. They hurried to the cargo ship. Once they reached it, Liz stooped and tucked herself inside and held the door open for Hoshi. A masculine Breen's voice came over the intercom.

"Attention, Human spies have infiltrated Memchr. All communications and public transit systems are locked down. This is not a drill."

The message repeated itself. The two women looked at each other. "This is not good." Hoshi said. She then pressed a button on the wall to make the door close. "Have a nice trip." She said.

"What are you doing? Get in." Liz said as she held the door open.

"Liz, they're locking everything down. I'll make a distraction and buy you some time."

"We're not splitting up." Liz said. Hoshi then punched Liz's mask and knocked her back to make the door close. "Damn you, Hoshi." She yelled.

"She'll be fine." Hoshi said to herself. Ducking down a side passage, she saw two armed Breen soldiers walking toward her. One lifted his weapon and pointed it at Hoshi.

"Stop! We need to verify your credentials."

More footsteps echoed behind Hoshi. Retreating would not have been an option in any event. Hoshi halted and waited for the soldiers to reach her. They were broadly built and stood a head taller than she did.

"H'ren Prish." She said. "Identify yourselves." Trying to buy some time since she figured her cover was already blown. The two soldiers were taken aback, having their own command repeated back to them. They looked at each other in obvious confusion.

Hoshi struck with her left palm and struck the mask of the one soldier. She then lashed out with her right foot to kick the other. Hoshi had taken down both of them but noticed a trio of guards rushing at her. Hoshi pulled out the weapon from one of the fallen soldiers and fired before starting to run.

Her only objectives were to keep moving away from Liz and to draw as much attention to herself as she could. Ducking through a maze of large crates and machines, she fired at anything that looked like it might explode. Smoke and flames erupted in her wake. The group of Breen soldiers behind her began to grow. She then sent a fork lift into a mountain of stacked containers. She even entertained the thought that she may be lucky enough to evade the Breen forces and make her get away.

She rounded a corner to find a line of Breen troops waiting for her, weapons leveled and ready, in the main aisle of the warehouse. A clatter of footsteps came to an abrupt halt behind her. She was surrounded and outgunned. A silence heavy with anticipation fell between her and the Breen who held her in their sights. Hoshi didn't know whether they planned to kill her or stun her as a prelude to arrest.

Wincing at a flash of weapons fire, she realized she would have her answer only when or if, she woke up again.


	14. More Interrogation and Infiltration

Liz watched the surface of Memchr fall away from her as the cargo ship left. She remained stuck fast to the hull of the ship with her suit operating at its lowest power setting, her comms off, and her visor at maximum screen to shield her eyes from the unfiltered white shine of the star. The ship had made two orbits of the planet and Liz expected it to begin its descent any moment.

She suppressed her rising feeling of anxiety by being alone and feeling guilty for leaving Hoshi. _"I shouldn't have left her." _She thought to herself. "_She didn't really give you much of a choice. If you stayed her sacrifice would've been for not."_

For a moment, she felt ashamed. She was a commissioned Starfleet officer, she knew her first duty was to the completion of the mission and that she and Hoshi were expendable.

Liz looked out the window, expecting to see Memchr but to her surprise all she saw were stars and darkness. She looked around and finally saw Memchr but it was very small. She then realized that the ship was moving at full impulse and away from the planet. Liz thought about her situation hard.

"_Either Starfleet was wrong about the shipyard being hidden on Memchr or Hoshi and I were wrong about this ship being used to smuggle parts and personnel to it. Or maybe we all were wrong. But if this ship is going to the shipyard, that would put it somewhere in the system. So how did Starfleet fail to detect an orbital shipyard?" _The question nagged at her and fueled her imagination. "_Maybe it's cloaked. But hiding something that big would kick up tetryons and tachyons, and probably about a dozen other high energy particles. And it's not as if the Breen are known for their cloaking technology. So, what are the Breen known for?"_

She thought back to the Dominion War, when the Breen entered the war on the side of the Dominion. They had attacked San Francisco, killing over two thousand people and they had retaken the Chin'toka system, then it hit her. _"Energy dampening weapons. IF they can cripple energy distribution systems, maybe they can also hide their own energy emissions. If that's the case, then as long as their shipyard doesn't look like one, they could put it anywhere."_

Liz brought up a map on the screen inside of her helmet. Basing the location of Memchr and the ship's departure trajectory, the system's outermost planets were gas giants with many small satellites, but Liz doubted them to be their destination. _"The shipyard could still be detected by visual scans, there was only one place for that." _The system's asteroid belt.

Consciousness returned as the heavy, dark hood was lifted from Hoshi's head in one rough pull. Her dark hair fell over her face as she squinted against the glare of the hot spotlight aimed into her eyes. She attempted to move only to find her movement was severely limited.

She felt cold air rushing all over her body. She then fully realized that her Breen armor had been removed and tossed to the side. She was still clothed but there wasn't much to leave to the imagination. Her whole body felt cold as ice. Slow footsteps came closer to her and then stopped right in front of her.

A male voice speaking in monotone English, with every bit of it garbled up from the metallic scratches of the Breen vocoders. "We have taken away your costume, Human. What is your name? Don't bother with your Breen aliases. I want your real name, rank and position."

Hoshi thought quickly, thinking back to some of the old Earth folklore stories that Dustin had told. "Rukia, Lieutenant Rukia Kuchiki of the thirteenth squad of the Gotei Thirteen." Hoshi fought back a smile, knowing who Rukia really was.

The inquisitor paced around her with a predator's slow deliberation. She could almost sense him taking her measure, assessing her weaknesses from a safe distance, searching for the faintest glimmers of fear. "I must admit that I enjoy questioning outworlders. I don't get to do it very often here."

"Then maybe you should go some place else." Hoshi shot back.

The inquisitor stopped and faced her directly. A faint spill of reflected light revealed the details of his mask's snout. "You mock me? Interesting. Your defiance is refreshing. All I got from your accomplice Char was silence, that is until I broke her." He resumed his slow pace around her. "Do you want to know how long she resisted? Or what it took to break her?"

"Not particularly." Hoshi said. "I'd much rather know what it's going to take to break you."

"I find it amusing that you think you are capable of testing me. However, those are just delusions. I hold your fate in my hands so don't test my patience."

Hoshi let out a small laugh. "Are you kidding? You expect me to believe that you hold the power of life and death over me? I strongly doubt that. You seem like a smart man, so I guess that you understand what a high profile prisoner I am. And if you know that, then it's a good bet that your superiors know it too. Which means if you kill me, they'll have your head on a spike."

"I do not have to kill you to change the shape of your being. My superiors will forgive my exuberance if I deliver you in a somewhat maimed condition. Their concern is that you survive, not your condition."

"Well played." Hoshi said admit tingly. Then she added. "Hihun koasu, ni tou skidesu. Unten riosterra desu ka Aerok?"

Her condescending question caught the Breen off guard. He paused in his circling and seemed to take a reflexive half step away from her. "Impressive, you speak our language without a vocoders. Can you also read our written language?"

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "Probably better than you do."

"Highly doubtful." He said.

"You still dodged my question." Hoshi said. "Are you Aerok? With a build like yours, I can tell you're not Anihc or Napaj. And your body language is all wrong for an Ailognom."

The inquisitor stepped from the shadows with a device in his hands. He tapped it against his open palm as he got closer. "You seem to be very knowledgeable about my people, now let's see what you can tell me about yours."

An X shaped fissure appeared on the asteroid's surface. It sharpened and spread into four triangles retreating from one another. The gap between them widened to reveal a dark space on the other side and Liz realized she was watching an enormous set of camouflaged hangar doors slide open. She strained to see what lay beyond them, but her eyes were unable to pierce the darkness.

She activated her mask's night vision. As it activated, an enormous form took shape inside the hangar. Its flattened profile and long, fluid lines resembled those of the Alexandria and her sister ships in the Sovereign class.

"_That must be the prototype." _Liz thought.

The cargo ship had docked and Liz was able to infiltrate the base. With every step Liz took, she expected to be found out, exposed, captured, and shot on sight. Turning each corner, she imagined herself being met by a line of Breen soldiers with disruptors aimed and set to kill. Instead, she worked her way through fast moving knots of workers and supervisors. Every room of the shipyard's administrative facility seemed to be packed with people.

More astonishing to Liz was that, even after walking through most of the base's four lowest levels in search of turbolifts on which she could discreetly hitch rides upward to the command level, she had yet to see a closed door or be challenged once for her credentials.

After climbing a ladder, she emerged into another passage like the one she'd left. She hurried to an intersection with the main corridor at its far end. Quick looks in each direction confirmed that this level was not as busy as the others. Liz heard no footsteps and saw no workers.

She stepped lightly as she made her way down the corridor. Stolen glances into each office revealed Breen military officers hunched inside task pods, each one's attention fixed on a large, complicated bolometric. The grinding gears scratch of vocoders voices talking over one another made it difficult for her to eavesdrop on particular conversations. She wondered how the Breen ever learned to pick out another one's voices from such a unpleasant noise.

She approached the door at the end of the hallway with two armed Breen guards standing at either side.

"_Nothing to do now except walk up and knock."_

She hesitated. Her mission was the destruction of the prototype as well as the corruption of the copies of the schematics. Only now, on the verge of her assignment's endgame, did Liz understand that her actions would wipe out more than a space dock and a test starship. She thought of the hundreds of workers she had seen on the base's lower levels, the multitude of technicians and engineers and construction specialists, many of whom were probably civilians. If she obeyed her orders, most, if not all, would die, at her hands.

Liz felt sick. The part of her that was a Starfleet officer, sworn to obey the orders of her superiors and defend the Federation, knew that she had to go forward. It was why she had come here. Hoshi had sacrificed herself to make this possible. But the part of Liz that was a scientist was repulsed by the notion of committing murder in the name of the Federation. Taking lives in open combat during wartime, was one thing, blowing up a shipyard despite knowing that it would result in a massive civilian loss was another.

"_These aren't innocents. They're willing members of the Breen war effort, helping to build a warship based on plans stolen from a Starfleet shipyard where their agent didn't hesitate to kill our citizens." _She thought to herself.

Her heart hardened. The Federation's clash with the Alliance might be a cold war, but there was no longer mistaking that it was a war.

Remembering Hoshi's warning about the need to use lethal force when operation security was on the line, Liz set her disruptor to kill.

The guards at the end of the hallway seemed to ignore her as she stepped around the corner. When she continued walking toward them, they tensed up and raised their rifles to position ready.

"Attention," Liz said. "My name is H'ren Garr. I am here on behalf of the Confederacy to inform you that two Human spies have been detected on Memchr. Have either of you seen anything unusual in the past three hours?"

The two guards looked at each other. In that fleeting motion of hesitation, Liz drew her disruptor and sapped off two shots at point blank range. Both guards collapsed at her feet. She grabbed one of their wrists and lifted it to the biometric sensor pad beside the door. Pressing it against the pad, Liz hoped she was right in her hunch that the guards would have access to the compartment they were assigned to defend. As the man's hand made contact, the pad changed color from pale maroon to a lime green, and the door to the Ops center slid open.

Liz strode inside, not knowing what to expect. She found herself in an octagonal, one level working space with one side devoted to situation monitors. It was manned by half a dozen Breen engineers, who all looked up as Dowler entered, and froze when they saw the disruptor in her hand.

She didn't wait for any of them to speak, to ask her what was happening or what she wanted or who she was. She took aim and opened fire. Less than a few seconds had passed and it was over, all six Breen were dead.

Dowler holstered her disruptor, pulled the dead guards inside the ops center, shut the door and engaged the security override to prevent it from being opened from the outside. Satisfied with her precautions, she walked to the master control panel. Everything she would need to put an end to the Breen's slipstream drive project was at her fingertips. She went to work.


	15. Final Stages of the Plan

Hoshi screamed as the inquisitor stabbed his neural truncheon into her back for what felt like the hundredth time. She had thought the pain was something to which she could adapt, or develop a resistance, or learn to block out, but she saw now that she had been wrong. The agony only grew worse with each injury.

Another burning jolt force a primal cry from her, and she went limp as the horrific stimulus was withdrawn. Before then, she had known everything about the Breen's infamous neural truncheons except for what it felt like. It was worse than she could ever imagine. The suffering it inflicted was so consumptive that it left her drained. He jabbed the truncheon into Hoshi's rib cage. It forced her to scream so fiercely that she was left breathless, gasping, her diaphragm racked with spasms from the ongoing neuro-electric shock. Her vision blurred and had a blue tint to it. Tears streamed from behind her tightly closed eyelids. She wanted to surrender herself to heaving sobs of fury, but her lungs refused to fill with air.

Hoshi went limp when the interrogator had removed his truncheon. The difficult part was going to be not actually losing consciousness. Every part of her body that she could still feel throbbed and burned from the electric shocks, and the dark comfort of oblivion was very tempting. She felt herself starting to slip into its cold, numbing and forever embrace.

"_NO!" _She told herself with authority. "_Focus! You have people counting on you. Kyou, Ryou, Dustin, they're all expecting you to return. Don't give up. Don't give in. Don't stop believing because you're gonna win."_

The interrogator was only a few feet away talking to his underlings. "When she awakens, contact me. For now, take her out of the chair and let her rest."

"Understood." The other Breen said.

The interrogator left the room, leaving Hoshi alone with two Breen. The two Breen stood on either side of Hoshi and loosened the restraints on her head, arms, torso, and legs. They hoisted her out of the chair and Hoshi felt as if her body weighed a hundred kilograms but she knew she had to act now.

She opened her eyes, snatched the disruptors from the Breens' holsters and fired the weapons into their stomachs. They crumpled to the floor and she rolled free to a kneeling position, pistols ready and facing the door.

Nothing else happened. The door did not open. She then gathered the pieces of her disguise from the floor and slipped back into it. She retrieved a medkit and gave herself a dose of a pain killer from a hypospray.

After checking that her suit was functioning normally, she grabbed the interrogator's neural truncheon and then pressed a few buttons on the comm panel. "Sir, the human woman is awake." She said.

"Good, I'll be down there immediately." The interrogator said.

"Understood, sir." She said before closing the channel. She then faced the door waiting for the interrogator. "I'll be here waiting for you."

Core breach warnings flashed on every display in the Ops center. Dowler glanced at the readings from inside the matter/anitmatter reactor, noted the rate at which its magnetic containment fields were collapsing, and was satisfied with her handiwork. In her estimate was correct, and she was reasonably certain that it was, then the Breen crew would have barely enough time to abandon this facility but not nearly enough time to halt the impending disaster.

There was one last task she had to complete, she had to sabotage the Alliance's copies of the slipstream schematics. Among the various bits of equipment Starfleet Intelligence had concealed inside her suit was a data rod configured to interface with Breen computer systems. Once connected, it was supposed to do the rest automatically, which was delete the primary copies of the file, corrupt all the backup copies with inaccurate data and upload a virus into the Breen mainframe that would stay hidden and corrupt any new slipstream related data it encountered.

She looked around and wasn't exactly sure where to put this rod. She closed her eyes and calmly breathed as havoc erupted through out the station. She then opened her eyes and eyed the main console. _"What if one of the touch screens were damaged?"_

She opened the access panel and found a circuit board and examined it for a port where a data rod would go. Then she found it. She took another deep breath and inserted the rod into the port.

A loud wail erupted from the console. Dowler looked at the screen and saw it running through its files, including the slipstream files. Suddenly the inside of the console exploded with sparks flying outward. The console then went dark.

Dowler then shot out the remaining consoles and even the overhead speaker assembly so voice commands could no longer be accepted. She then rushed to the door and opened it to see two Breen soldiers running towards her.

Dowler shot the first soldier in the side of the head. The body fell backward onto the other Breen, preventing him from bringing up his weapon. Liz then shot the Breen in the chest. After both Breen soldiers had dropped, Dowler cautiously walked through the halls. All that remained now for Dowler was to escape the base alive, get clear of its energy dampening field and signal the Alexandria for extraction. It was time to go home.

Hoshi walked close behind the interrogator and pressed the muzzle of her disruptor against his lower back. She had subdued him with three jolts of his neural truncheon when he had returned to the interrogation room, disarmed him, disabled his helmet's transceiver, and marched him out as her hostage. No one had tried to stop them, and the dim lighting of the corridors had helped keep her weapon hidden.

"This way is the flight deck." He said.

"Take me there." Hoshi said sternly. She then saw another Breen was at the end of the corridor and walking toward them. Hoshi pressed her weapon deeper into his back. "Stay quiet and you'll both live. Try to call for help and you both will die." They continued walking and passed the other Breen without incident. They reached the door and on Hoshi's order, the interrogator opened the door.

The stepped inside and once the door shut, Hoshi slammed the bottom of her pistol into the head of the interrogator's head. He collapsed to the floor, unconscious. She then restrained him using the restraints from the interrogation room, just in case.

She then looked out to the deck to see multiple fighters. She looked around and saw no one around. She then sprinted out to the nearest fighter and hopped into the cockpit. The cockpit's display flared to life, and the ship's engines shrieked before roaring to life themselves.

Hitting the commands on her console, the fighter shot forward. She shot out of the hangar and into the skies. Multiple dots appeared on her sensor displays. The dots represented an interception squad. Apparently her getaway had not been as clean as she had hoped.

"_This thing can't go past quarter impulse so running away is out of the question."_

The dots on her display were closing in on her. She flipped her craft's nose around to face her incoming attackers.

"It's always some damned adventure." She said.


	16. Recall Beacons

Everywhere that Dowler had looked in search of an exit she found only missed chances. Entire corridors were lined with empty spaces from which escape pods had been launched, sent hurtling away through seemingly endless tubes tunneled through the asteroid. She had made it to the main cargo bay when she saw a flash of yellow light and noticed that the prototype was warming up.

If the prototype escaped then her mission would be a total failure. All the lives she had taken would've ended for nothing and Hoshi's sacrifice would have been in vain. That wasn't an outcome that Dowler was prepared to accept.

_Change in plans._

Dowler charged towards the nearest work vehicle and powered it up. The console lit up in front of her. She hit a few consoles and sent the vehicle forward towards the prototype. She flew through the weak force field that was on to keep atmosphere inside the base and not keep anything from passing through. Energy cracked across the small craft's forward section as it passed through it and into the airless environment where the prototype was powering up.

Dowler opened the hatch of the small craft and leapt from it as it stayed on course for the engines of the prototype. She had made it a good distance away before the craft collided with the prototype and exploded. There was no sound in the vacuum of space so she didn't hear the explosion, just saw the satisfying light followed by a spreading cloud of debris. A small shockwave quickly caught up to Dowler and sent her spiraling out into the openness of deep space.

She confirmed that she was clear of the base's energy dampening field and then triggered her emergency recall beacon.

Allensworth stepped out of the turbolift in a hurry to reach the bridge. "Report."

"Sir, We have a lock on Lieutenant Dowler's recall beacon. It's in an asteroid belt in the Rakis system." Ra'chel said. She could feel Commander Zofchak's eyes focused on her any info about his wife. "We're continuing to monitor Commander Sato's frequency, just in case." She said hoping to ease the chief engineer.

"Good." Allensworth said. "Mister Dowey, plot a course to Dowler's recall beacon, maximum warp." The captain then nodded to Merriell for the go ahead.

"Red alert." Merriell said. "All hands, battle stations." The alert klaxon whooped and the overhead lights dimmed to their combat setting.

"Lieutenant McKenzie, spring the trap." Allensworth said.

The chief of security entered commands into her tactical console. "Uploading into the Breen communication systems."

"The Breen are getting messages stating that their border colonies are under attack by Klingon forces." Johnson reported.

"I'll bet the Breen ships will warp away in the next few minutes." Allensworth said.

"I'm not taking that bet, Captain." Merriell said. "Besides, even if they do, we'll still have to deal with the Romulans, and there's no telling how many of them there are. We're reading up to three warbirds out there but who knows how many might be cloaked."

"My guess is two no more than five." McKenzie said.

Merriell cocked an eyebrow towards her. "Based on…?"

"My analysis of standard Romulan fleet deployment strategies, cross referenced with their known ships on active duty in this sector and recent Starfleet activity reports that pinpoint the locations of forty-seven of them."

"That's why Lieutenant Fulks chose her as his replacement." Allensworth said.

Allensworth leaned forward in his chair. He watched the stars on the main viewer and imagined Liz floating somewhere out there in all that darkness. "The moment the road is open, we're going in."

Hoshi remained steady and calm as her pursuers entered weapons range. Their sensor profile had remained consistent throughout their approach. Their were six of them, moving in close formation.

Bright green flashes of energized plasma raced past Hoshi's ship, too far away to pose a serious threat but close enough to cause her to catch her breath. More plasma volleys ensued.

Hoshi returned fire. Beams shot from her forward gun and the targeting scanner registered two of the dots had disappeared from the shooting. She then engaged thrusters and charged ahead of the patrol. She picked the closer two ships and tried to slip into a pursuit course but the second pair adjusted course and force Hoshi back into a defensive mode. Turning tail and going full evasive was not the situation that Hoshi wanted.

A new energy ball streaked past her ship from behind and a few nicked her ship's wings and grazed its tailfin. Suddenly an alert shrieked from her console. And a red light flashed on her cockpit's flight display meaning someone had a weapons lock.

She came to a full stop and her attacker came flying past her and was now several hundred kilometers in front of her. She fired once again. Her phaser beam sliced through her enemy and now only three remained.

An alert flashed on her helmet's hud, letting her know that Dowler had activated her recall beacon. That meant that she was alive and calling for extraction. It also meant that Hoshi had a new objective.

Setting a new course, she patched in every bit of thrust her ship could dish out and set it all for an extended, non stop burn. Multiple indicators redlined, hull stress, engine temperature. The fighter shuddered with such violence that Hoshi feared it might break apart all on its own. She pushed it past all its rated tolerances, setting it on a path of pure acceleration all the way to Liz.

Within a few seconds she was out of her pursuers' weapons range, and she noted that they didn't seem to be making an effort to match her speed.

_They know this ship will not keep this up for long and when the engines burn out, they'll fly in and pick me off._

She smiled as she triggered her own suit's recall beacon and hoped that Captain Allensworth and the Alexandria didn't keep her and Liz waiting.

"The Breen ship's are breaking formation." Lieutenant McKenzie said. "They're leaving the blockade and setting course away from the border."

Allensworth watched the shifting icons on the tactical display. "Johnson, are the Romulan ships redeploying to cover the positions abandoned by the Breen?"

"Yes, sir." She said. "It looks like they're scrambling."

"Mister Dowey, are you ready?"

"Ready, sir. Just give the word."

"Hit it." Allensworth said.

The Alexandria leapt into warp. Allensworth imagined the stunned reactions of the hapless Romulans, he and his crew had just left behind at the border and permitted himself a gloating smile. _Catch us if you can._


	17. The Rescue

Life support was the first system to fail inside Hoshi's Breen ship. Hoshi didn't care as long as the engines kept going. Heat warnings lit up her console, and the fighter's flight controls were becoming unresponsive.

Her pursuers were still behind her, but they hadn't given up. They were waiting for her ship's inevitable engine failure. As the dart like craft shuddered and sparks flew from beneath its forward console, Hoshi suspected that fateful event was mere moments away. She checked her range on her helmet's hud screen for her position in relevance to Dowler's. She was eighty thousand kilometers and closing fast. Forty thousand was the maximum range of a Starfleet transporter. Because Hoshi had no idea where the Alexandria might be when it came to retrieve Dowler, to have a chance of being beamed up with her Hoshi knew she needed to get within ten thousand kilometers of her position.

She was fifty thousand kilometers out when her port thruster started to lose power. To avoid being thrown into an unrecoverable spin, she cut power in the starboard thruster to match. Then the engine core of her ship seized and the power levels dropped. She was still forty-five thousand kilometers away. She spun the ship around, using the maneuvering jets, to face her pursuers. She turned off power to the inertial dampeners. She opened fire, regardless of the fact that the other fighters were out of range, and the weapons discharge caused her ship to accelerate backwards. She was down past forty-two thousand kilometers and the pursuers would be in weapons range in less than thirty seconds. Her ship continued to sail past forty-one thousand and that's when the guns shut down completely from over heating. She then used the maneuvering jets again to angle herself towards Dowler's position.

She gripped her seat's ejection handle with her white knuckled right hand and as soon as her ship passed the forty thousand kilometer mark, her sensors detected a multiple weapons lock and that's when she pulled the handle.

The acceleration was so fierce that Hoshi thought she had slammed into something and was being crushed. The immense force of ejection subsided as she rocketed away from the ship and towards Dowler.

A searing flash of yellow light scattered her abandoned ship into slag. She caught a glimpse of engine lights from the pursuing ships as they flew past her.

Her visor's hud confirmed that she was less than thirty-eight thousand kilometers away from Liz and continuing to close the distance.

Liz watched hope growing closer as she watched on her visor's hud the approach of Hoshi. Suddenly, a blinding flash of light made her wince. Her visor compensated for the glare, enabling her eyes to adjust and see the final moments of a fiery explosion, which was on a direct bearing to Hoshi's last coordinates. Terror stabbed her fiercely, and for the span of a second, she was paralyzed with dread and doubt.

Suddenly, two large dark shapes zoomed past her. She turned to see that they were Breen interceptors.

_They'll be able to pick us off easily. We're finished._

Suddenly, high above her, a white flash of light, followed by a loud, thunderous clap, erupted as if from nowhere. She felt a bizarre galvanic tingling on her skin. When she realized what she was looking at, she grinned. The most beautiful sight she could have seen: the elegant, shark like hull of the Sovereign class USS Alexandria.

Lieutenant McKenzie's voice crackled over her helmet's transceiver. "Alexandria to Lieutenant Dowler. Do you read?"

"Affirmative, Alexandria."

"Stand by for transport. We'll have you aboard…" Energy pulses slammed into the Alexandria's hull. Seconds later, two Breen interceptors streaked past the starship. "Hang on, Lieutenant. As soon as we swat a few flies, we'll beam you up."

Liz knew that if the Alexandria destroyed the interceptors it would be an act of war. She saw a point on the phaser array light up and move to a certain position. Once it stopped a beam of orange light lashed out and struck a fighter. Another beam shot out and hit the other one. Both fighters took off like bats out of hell.

No matter how many times engineers tried to convince Hoshi that one was not able to perceive the passage of time while dematerializing inside a transporter buffer, she remained certain that she could feel the difference between a long transporter cycle and a short one, this one felt it had lasted an eternity.

She felt the immobilizing tub of the annular confinement beam and then a haze of energized particles had surrounded her, whisking the star field from view. In an eye blink she had submerged into a sea of endless white light.

As the interior of the Alexandria's main transporter room took shape before her, Hoshi had a mild disoriented sensation, feeling like she had awoken from a very long nap. As soon as she had rematerialized, she turned and saw another unsteady figure in Breen armor looking back at her. The two pulled off their helmets and smiled at one another.

Hoshi heard the doors to the transporter room open and she turned her head to see her husband come rushing in. He ran up onto the pad and hugged his wife tightly. After kissing her passionately, he reached up with one hand and gingerly touched her bruised face. Her lips were brittle, cracked and caked with dried blood.

"You're hurt." He said, racing the line of her jaw with his fingertips.

"It's nothing." She said, lifting her hand tenderly to his cheek.

"Who did this to you?" He asked.

"A Breen interrogator."

He planted a soft kiss on her forehead. She winced. He pulled back and saw that she was trembling. "What did he do to you?"

"Went a bit overboard with his neural truncheon."

"We need to get you to sickbay. Doctor Plumley will need to run a test incase there is synaptic…"

"Dustin, I'm not dying. I promise." She stroked his scruffy chin. "I love it when you don't shave for awhile." She then leaned forward and nuzzled his cheek.

"You know, for this marriage to work, you'll need to cut back on the traveling." Dustin said smiling.

At that moment, Doctor Plumley walked in with a group of medical personnel. "I don't need to interrupt the reunion but we need to make sure that you two are all right." She said pointing to Liz and Hoshi.

Allensworth sat at the desk of his ready room, facing the holographic display of Admiral Nechyev.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Captain for my next question but a few members of the admiralty are finding hard to believe the details of Lieutenant Commander Sato's escape from Breen custody or Lieutenant Dowler's ability to reach and destroy the target. My question is that have you ever known either one to embellish their accounts of events?"

Allensworth shook his head. "No, Admiral."

"I don't share their doubts, Captain but without evidence…"

"We do have evidence, Admiral. The armor they wore recorded a complete log of their activities. However, since Dowler's also contains secondhand recordings of the slipstream schematics, and both contain classified intel regarding Starfleet's preparations for the mission, I decided it was unsafe to risk transmitting them over subspace channels, regardless of encryption. I arranged with Starfleet Intelligence to hand over the drives to Captain Sisko once we reached Deep Space Nine." He keyed in a command to relay a file over the channel to Nechayev. "I'm uploading the chain of custody log. It verifies that Sisko received the drives this morning at thirteen forty-seven station time."

"Starfleet Intelligence has possession of the mission logs?" The admiral asked.

"Yes, sir."

Nechayev frowned. "Nice of them to keep me in the loop."

"Admiral, as long as I have your attention, I've been hearing rumors that the Alliance is making waves because of what happened in the Rakis system. And rumor has it that the Romulans are really irked about getting ambushed by the Klingons. I hope we didn't cause any more trouble that we needed to."

"No more than usual, Captain." Nechayev said. "Stick to the version of events in your logs and there shouldn't be a problem. The Alliance's ambassador will blow it out of proportion, I'm sure. But, Jermaine, you and your crew performed commendably under near impossible circumstances. Cut yourself some slack and don't worry about the politics. That's an order."

"Aye, sir." He said with a smile.

"Nechayev out."

The holo emitter went dark and Allensworth sat in the dimly lit ready room with only his thoughts.

A few nights later, Liz awoke from a dream whose details she didn't remember. She looked around the room and remembered that she was in Allensworth's quarters and that Jermaine was sleeping next to her, his breathing slow and deep.

She slipped out of bed, which was a bit cold in comparison to the warm bed. She wrapped herself in her bathrobe and made it to the other room and then to the replicator. She asked for a herbal tea from Risa which had a floral smell to it. She turned around to see a man sitting there. He wore a black outfit that appeared to be made out of leather.

"Luke, what are you doing here?"

"I told you I would return." He said. "Section Thirty-one is very impressed with your performance on Memchr."

"That's nice now leave. I told you, I'm done with Section Thirty-one."

"You're done when we say you are. When you're a member of Section Thirty-one, you're a member for life." Luke said. "We will continue to check on you two. In the meantime just sit tight, we may require the assistance of Captain Allensworth and his crew again."

The End


End file.
